Assessing the efficacy of nourishment of a Mediterranean beach using bimodal fluvial sediments and a specific placement
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ORIGINAL
Assessing the efficacy of nourishment of a Mediterranean beach using bimodal fluvial sediments and a specific placement design Matteo Vacchi 1 & Giorgio Berriolo 2 & Chiara F. Schiaffino 2 & Alessio Rovere 3 & Edward A. Anthony 4 & Nicola Corradi 2 & Marco Firpo 2 & Marco Ferrari 2 Received: 31 March 2020 / Accepted: 8 June 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Several studies have highlighted the difficulties inherent to the use of bimodal fluvial sediments in beach nourishment and the resulting unpredictable behaviour of the beach profile. In this paper, we monitored the temporal evolution of a nourishment project carried out on a northwestern Mediterranean beach and using fluvial mixed sand and gravel nourishment material. The main aim of the study was to examine the morpho-sedimentary evolution of the beach from the injection of the nourishment material to the attainment of a targeted equilibrium profile. The monitoring activity was conducted coupling multiple topobathymetric surveys and sediment sampling. The data show that the targeted equilibrium profile was attained less than 2 years after the nourishment, and, since that period, the shoreline has shown minimal mobility. Our results show that the positioning of the nourishment material is as important as the correct choice of grain size to attain rapid and successful nourishment of a beach. Further applications of this methodology in other coastal settings and/or with different nourishment sediments (e.g. medium or fine sands) are presently being considered. If confirmed at a broader scale, this nourishment design, employing bimodal fluvial sediments, should significantly contribute to the mitigation of beach erosion. Keywords Beach nourishment . Coastal dynamics . Bimodal fluvial sediment . Mixed sand-gravel beach . Mediterranean Sea
Introduction Erosion is currently one of the most significant problems affecting beaches worldwide. It is linked to the complex interplay between climatic (e.g. variability in storm regime or rising sea levels), geological (e.g. lithological characteristics), anthropogenic factors (e.g. depletion of river-derived sediment supplies by human activities) and strong socioGiorgio Berriolo is deceased. This paper is dedicated to his memory. * Matteo Vacchi [email protected] 1
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Pisa, Via Santa Maria 53, 56126 Pisa, Italy
2
DiSTAV, University of Genoa, Corso Europa, 26, 16132 Genoa, Italy
3
MARUM, Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, 28359 Bremen, Germany
4
CNRS, IRD, INRA, Coll France, CEREGE, Aix Marseille University, Aix en Provence, France
economic development of coastal areas (Charlier and De Meyer 1998; González and Medina 2001; Pranzini and Williams 2013; Pilkey and Cooper 2014; Anthony 2019). Since coastal areas are often socially and economically important, maintaining beaches in a good state represents a fundamental aspect of coastal management (e.g. Van Leeuwen et al. 2007; Anfuso et al.
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