THE EFFECT OF STOCHASTICALLY SIMULATED STORM-INDUCED BREACHES ON THE LONG-TERM MORPHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION OF BARRIER COASTS

Abstract

Storms can have a devastating impact on barrier coasts and provide a mechanism for inlet creation. We found that if a storm-induced breach is opened in a barrier coast that is in equilibrium; the other pre-storm inlets will become smaller due to interaction between the inlets and the total cross-sectional area remaining approximately the same. To study the morphodynamic effects of storm induced breaches on the long-term evolution of barrier coasts, we built a stochastic shell around an existing barrier coast model, allowing us to perform a Monte Carlo simulation.