Modelling decadal barrier island behavior

Modelling decadal barrier island behavior

Pruis, K.W.

Stive, M.J.F. (mentor)
Van Thiel de Vries, J.S.M. (mentor)
McCall, R. (mentor)
Storms, J.E.A. (mentor)
De Vries, S. (mentor)

Civil Engineering and Geosciences

Hydraulic Engineering

Coastal Engineering

2011-06-15

The barrier islands in the Gulf of Mexico are regularly exposed to hurricanes, one of the main functions of the islands is to protect the mainland. Due to climate change the frequency and intensity of hurricanes is expected to change, which may affect the long term evolution of the islands. In this study these long term (decadal) morphological changes are investigated. The objective of this thesis is to find out how the long term (decadal) evolution is affected by the intensity of hurricanes and by various recovery factors. In order to investigate the long term behavior of barrier islands a model train of a coupled storm impact model and a recovery model is created. The erosion events are modeled by making use of the depth averaged 2DH model XBeach (Roelvink et al., 2009). The recovery phase in between hurricanes is modeled with a newly developed recovery model. The model train is calibrated with 8 years (2002 – 2010) of data from the Chandeleur islands, Louisiana, USA.

hurricanes
recovery
numerical modelling
model train
Chandeleur Islands

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:305fe105-d4c4-44ab-83c7-037df8274793

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2011 Pruis, K.W.
Deltares