A New Model for Cross-Shore Surf and Swash Zone Morphology Evolution Induced by Nonlinear Waves

This work presents a new model for surf and swash zone morphology evolution induced by nonlinear waves. The nonlinear wave transformation in the surf and swash zone is computed by a nonlinear breaking wave model based on the higher order Boussinesq equations for breaking and non-breaking waves. Regarding sediment transport, this work builds on the improvements introduced by Karambas and Samaras (2014) and adopts the latest update of the transport formula of Camenen and Larson (2007) proposed by Zhang and Larson (2020). The wave and morphology evolution model is tested against two sets of experiments on beach profile change. The innovation of this work is the validation of a new Boussinesq-type morphology model under both erosive and accretive conditions in the foreshore (accretion is rarely examined in similar studies), which the model reproduces very well without modification of the empirical coefficients of the sediment transport formula used and without the use of an erosion/accretion criterion. The presented set of applications highlights model capabilities, as well as its suitability for coastal erosion mitigation and beach restoration design.