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- The morphosedimentary behaviour of a headland–beach system: Quantifying sediment transport using fluorescent tracersPublication . Oliveira, Sónia; Moura, Delminda; Horta, João; Nascimento, Ana; Gomes, A.I.; Veiga-Pires, C.Embayed beaches occurring along rocky coasts with headlands controlling hydrosedimentary processes are considered to be constrained sedimentary systems with little longshore sediment transfer between them. Such beaches are likely to narrow under rising sea level and a deficit of fluvial sediment, and because beaches act to dissipate wave energy, cliff erosion is expected to increase. Knowledge of hydrosedimentary processes in fetch-limited environments such as embayed beaches is therefore a fundamental management tool in erosionprone coastal areas such as the Algarve region (southern Portugal). Themain objective of this work is to quantify longshore sediment transport (LST) using a sedimentary tracer and compare the resultswith the ones derived via empirical formulae from several authors. To achieve this, we establish the spatial and temporal patterns of stained sediment, and relate these to marine climate data over six tidal cycles for three adjacent embayed beaches. The values of displaced sand estimated using tracer and scaled to mixed layer depth were compared with the results of five well-known LST formulae to assess the applicability of eachmodel to mesotidal environments. Of the LST formulae used, the CERC (2013) shows to be the most accurate in our study area. This study demonstrates the efficacy of using tracers for tracking and quantifying the sediment transport and as a basis for assessing the viability of different LST formulae for representing transport in these types of environments. Thework also shows the importance of themorphological control of hydrosedimentary processes, including the disruption of longshore drift and the sediment transfer promoted by shore platforms.
- Moving sands along a headland-embayed beach system (Algarve, Southern Portugal)Publication . Oliveira, Sónia; Horta, João; Nascimento, Ana; Gomes, A.I.; Veiga-Pires, C.; Moura, DelmindaResilience of embayed and pocket beaches located at the southernmost coast of Portugal is currently a major question to coastal management of this region. In fact, several among those beaches have been artificially fed aiming to increase the width of the beach allowing people to maintain a safe distance to the unstable rocky cliffs.
- Mean sea level and coastline: Late QuaternaryPublication . Moura, Delminda; Gomes, A.I.; Gabriel, Selma; Horta, JoãoCoastal zones modified along the geological time forced by tectonic activity, climatic and mean sea level changes and thereby can preserve relevant information concerning past climatic and oceanographic conditions. During lowstands derived by glacial conditions, the coastline migrated seaward and, wide portions of the continental shelves where exposed to sub aerial evolution, the drainage net extended far away in the shelf and dune fields overspread favoured by dry cold conditions and vegetation scarcity. In contrast, during deglatiations, the mean sea level rose forcing the landward migration of the coastline leading to the landscapes submersion. The preservation of morphological features such as beaches, dunes and spit bars depended on several environmental variables and processes, such as, erosion, remobilization by currents, waves and mass movements and sedimentary burial. The relationship between the coastline and the mean sea level evolution along the Quaternary, as well as the environmental variables on the landscape preservation and remobilization are under discussion in this work.
- The morphosedimentary behaviour of a headland–beach system: quantifying sediment transport using fluorescent tracersPublication . Oliveira, Sónia; Moura, Delminda; Horta, João; Nascimento, Ana; Gomes, A.I.; Veiga-Pires, C.Embayed beaches occurring along rocky coasts with headlands controlling hydrosedimentary processes are considered to be constrained sedimentary systems with little longshore sediment transfer between them. Such beaches are likely to narrow under rising sea level and a deficit of fluvial sediment, and because beaches act to dissipate wave energy, cliff erosion is expected to increase. Knowledge of hydrosedimentary processes in fetch-limited environments such as embayed beaches is therefore a fundamental management tool in erosionprone coastal areas such as the Algarve region (southern Portugal). The main objective of this work is to quantify longshore sediment transport (LST) using a sedimentary tracer and compare the results with the ones derived via empirical formulae from several authors. To achieve this, we establish the spatial and temporal patterns of stained sediment, and relate these to marine climate data over six tidal cycles for three adjacent embayed beaches. The values of displaced sand estimated using tracer and scaled to mixed layer depth were compared with the results of five well-known LST formulae to assess the applicability of each model to mesotidal environments. Of the LST formulae used, the CERC (2013) shows to be the most accurate in our study area. This study demonstrates the efficacy of using tracers for tracking and quantifying the sediment transport and as a basis for assessing the viability of different LST formulae for representing transport in these types of environments. The work also shows the importance of the morphological control of hydrosedimentary processes, including the disruption of longshore drift and the sediment transfer promoted by shore platforms.