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Large-Scale Shoreline Undulations and Role of Self-Organization Processes


Affiliations
1 School of Engineering Technology, Jimei University, Xiamen 361021, China
2 School of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, United Kingdom
3 State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
 

This study investigates the large scale spatial variation behaviour of shoreline changes using the beach profile data along approximately 600 km shoreline around Hainan Island, China. It was found that there exists a power-law relationship between the mean shoreline change variance and the corresponding alongshore scale which holds up to 30 km for the annual shoreline change and reduces to 15 km for the seasonal shoreline change. The spatial and seasonal variations of shoreline azimuth, beach sediment size and wave conditions, and their connection with the shoreline change on different scales were studied. The results suggest that the internal feedback mechanisms between various processes with different spatial scales may be responsible for the observed shoreline change patterns, i.e. the annual shoreline behaviour on spatial scale 5–30 km is likely to be the result of self-organization, while the seasonal waves including tropical cyclones and storms exert dominant control of the morphological patterns at spatial scale of 10–25 km.

Keywords

Beach, Forcing, Power-Law, Seasonal, Self-Affinity.
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  • Large-Scale Shoreline Undulations and Role of Self-Organization Processes

Abstract Views: 194  |  PDF Views: 56

Authors

Xiaojing Zhong
School of Engineering Technology, Jimei University, Xiamen 361021, China
Ping Dong
School of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, United Kingdom
Shenliang Chen
State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China

Abstract


This study investigates the large scale spatial variation behaviour of shoreline changes using the beach profile data along approximately 600 km shoreline around Hainan Island, China. It was found that there exists a power-law relationship between the mean shoreline change variance and the corresponding alongshore scale which holds up to 30 km for the annual shoreline change and reduces to 15 km for the seasonal shoreline change. The spatial and seasonal variations of shoreline azimuth, beach sediment size and wave conditions, and their connection with the shoreline change on different scales were studied. The results suggest that the internal feedback mechanisms between various processes with different spatial scales may be responsible for the observed shoreline change patterns, i.e. the annual shoreline behaviour on spatial scale 5–30 km is likely to be the result of self-organization, while the seasonal waves including tropical cyclones and storms exert dominant control of the morphological patterns at spatial scale of 10–25 km.

Keywords


Beach, Forcing, Power-Law, Seasonal, Self-Affinity.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv115%2Fi4%2F729-738