Modelling sandbar migration

Understanding the response of the beach profile and its shallow features (sandbars) in varying wave climates has important implications for different fields. Modeling the evolution of onahore sandbars is especially challenging due to the complex hydrodynamic processes that drive sediment transport and morphological changes. Effect of wave shape have been identified as been importnant in onshore sandbar migration.

A simplified process-based model for onshore sandbar migration

This approach takes wave-averaged parameters as input and computes sediment transport processes using a reconstructed intra-wave orbital velocity signal.

The reconstructed velocity is then used to calculate the sediment fluxes

Model results for the test cases

The model was tested on multiple onshore sandbar migration cases (101 cases) at Duck, NC. The proposed method guarantees good predictive skills for the cases without an ad-hoc calibration for each scenario.

The model was also tested on other locations