Modelling coastal erosion in Brandon Bay
- Title
-
Modelling coastal erosion in Brandon Bay
- Start Date
-
December 2018
- End Date
-
November 2022
- Funding Body
- Project Coordinator
- Principal Investigators
-
Dr Stephen Nash (MaREI@NUI Galway), Prof Gregorio Iglesias (MaREI@UCC), Dr Eugene Farrell (Geography, NUI Galway), Andi Egon (PhD student)
- Research Area
-
Coastal and Marine Systems, Climate Change
Introduction
Storms can contribute significantly to morphological changes along coastlines which can in turn adversely impact on the environment and coastal infrastructure. Climate change may lead to more frequent and severe storms which will only exacerbate the problem. Understanding the hydrodynamic processes driving such morphological changes is key to effective coastal zone management.
Aim
Using Brandon Bay as the study area, this project aims to develop a coupled tide-wave-morphological modelling system that can predict shoreline erosion. The model will be used to investigate the important connections between different storm types such as size, direction, duration, clustering and associated coastal response. It will also be used to predict likely shoreline changes resulting from future climate change.
Collaborations
The project is supported by two other MaREI projects: (1) the monitoring of waves in the bay using a waverider and (2) the Shore Cam project which aims to establish a low-cost shoreline monitoring system using fixed, time-lapse cameras, both of which will provide important datasets for model validation.
