ASSIGNMENT 2 Onshore-Offshore Sediment Transport

CVEN 9640D COASTAL ENGINEERING

Due Week 9 Friday, May 6, 2016
Submit as a pdf by email to m.harley@unsw.edu.au by 5pm on 6/5/16.
ASSIGNMENT SCOPE
For this assignment you will be running the SBEACH model to familiarize yourself with an engineeringscale working cross-shore sediment transport model commonly used in Coastal Engineering Consulting.
The assignment is being set up as a consulting brief in which you will run the model and provide
engineering advice to your client in the form of an engineering report. You will need your notes from
Beaches, Hazards, Climate Change and Cross-shore Sediment Transport along with handouts
provided in the Assignment 2 Folder on Moodle and any other reports/papers you see fit.
You have been asked by Tigard Council to develop Coastal Hazard lines for a beach in which new
development is proposed along high value coastline. The council requires lines for present day as well as
2050 and 2100. See Figure 13 (Beaches, Hazards, Climate Change) for example and Nielsen et al.
(1992).
Background information:
The beach currently has a long-term recession rate of 0.2 m/yr.
Assume no erosion due to longshore transport gradients or to beach rotation.
Sea level rise for the area has been adopted as 0.4m (2050) and 0.8m (2100).
Council has adopted that storm erosion demand is based on 2 back to back 100yr ARI storms.
The effective grain size (D50) is 0.35mm.
SBEACH MODEL:
The model and various help and data files are located within the .zip file SBEACH 2000 (32bit) or
SBEACH 64bit (64bit) which are on Moodle.
Install the appropriate version of the SBeach model and load the existing project Assignment.SB.
Familiarise yourself with the operation of the model by running various combinations of the profile and
storms pre-loaded within the Assignment.SB project file.
IMPORTANT Make sure you save a copy of the original Assignment.SB file. For the final model
run you write your report on, restart SBeach and run the original model setup with the modified design
conditions.
ASSIGNMENT TASKS
1 - You are required to run the model using the Narrabeen Malcolm St August 1986 profile and assess
your expected uncertainty in your results based on the calibration to the Narrabeen Malcolm St August
1986 storm.
NOTE: use the existing parameters given in SBeach for your analysis. You may wish to change
parameters to show you understand model sensitivity. For the default values, discuss briefly:

The patterns of beach volume change, where is sand moving and why? Is the total volume
conserved?

Rates of shoreline recession/beach volume change above MSL at different times during the model
run (Hint see figure 2 in your Cross-shore Sediment Transport notes). For beach volume
change, assume the total volume (ie integrated in the cross-shore) between x=0 (the most
landward grid point) and the shoreline (MSL).
Can any of your observations be explained in terms of the model formulation (Hint - see section
1.4.2 of your Cross-shore Sediment Transport Modelling notes)?

2- Utilize SBeach and the 100yrARI_queensland storm provided to calculate an appropriate storm
demand volume (measured above 0m AHD) based on the background information above (ie 2 back-toback 100yr ARI storms).
How does your estimated erosion volumes above MSL (storm demand) compare to those
commonly reported by Gordon (1990) for the 100 yr ARI storm. (HINT: see figure 2 in Nielson
and Adamantidis, 2007).
Using the approach outlined in Nielsen et al. (1992) use the erosion volumes estimated in SBeach
to calculate the Zone of Wave Impact and the Zone of Slope adjustment. Assume a natural angle
of repose of 34 degrees. Assume the top of swash is at 2m AHD.
3 Estimate the zone of reduced foundation capacity following the approach of Nielsen et al. (1992).
Assume the depth of scour is -1m AHD.
4 Estimate recession due to SLR for 2050 and 2100 based on the Bruun Rule. Depth of closure can be
estimated from the equations in your Cross-shore sediment transport notes. Berm height can be
estimated from the profile data given in the SBeach Assignment SB. Depth of closure (hc) can be assumed
to be 15 m. Clearly state your assumptions in the report.
5 Combine your knowledge of the long-term recession rate, design storm erosion demand, SLR
recession and zone of reduced foundation to provide council advice on where the present, 2050 and 2100
coastal erosion hazard line should be. Make your distances relative to the present day x=0 which
coincides with the top of the dune. Discuss what factors of safety are included in this methodology.
Based on your reading and knowledge so far, comment on how this approach could be improved.
SUBMISSION
Write up your results in a concise engineering report with correctly and clearly labelled sections, figures,
tables and a bibliography. Your report should include a title page, table of contents, executive summary,
proper introduction, model description, engineering findings and a conclusion. Each figure/table should
support your writing (Do not provide a dump of figures).
HINT: The easier you make it for your marker to identify the key deliverables, the better chance of
getting marks.
The report cannot exceed 20 pages (1.5 spacing) excluding your title page, table of contents, and
executive summary. Appendices can be provided for calculations if you see fit but these will not be
necessarily marked.