Applications of EMD to analyses of high-frequency beachface responses to Storm Bebinca in the Qing’an Bay,Guangdong Province,China

On average,five to six storms occur in the Qiongzhou Strait every year,causing significant damage to coastal geomorphology and several property losses.Tropical Storm Bebinca is the most unusual and complex storm event that has occurred in this region over the last 10 years.To detect the high-frequency beachface responses to the storm,a pressure sensor was deployed in the surf zone to record the free sea surface height,and the heights of grid pile points on the beachface were measured manually to determine beach elevation changes during this storm.Empirical Mode Decomposition and related analysis techniques were used to analyze the high-frequency topography and wave data.The results showed that:(1)the beachface response process occurred in three stages.The first stage was the rapid response stage,wherein the spring tide berm began to erode significantly,and the front edge of the beach berm reacted closely.The two beach sections resisted the harmful energy of the main storm.In the second stage,the beach slope increased after a large sediment loss on the beach berm and its front edge.To adapt to the storm energy,the beach at the low tide line began to erode,and the beach slope decreased.In the third stage,after the storm turned,the wave energy was significantly attenuated,and the beach berm eroded to resist the residual wave energy.The beachface began to oscillate and recover.(2)The main wave surface was the superimposed product of a few internal mode functions.Similar results were observed in beachface changes.High-frequency driving factors determine the local characteristics of beach evolution,and low-frequency driving factors determine the beach evolution trend.(3)The response of sediment to the storm was not a single sea-transportation,but a single-or two-way conversion driven by factors such as wave energy,swash flow,and secondary wave breaking.(4)TheΩ-RTR model is not completely applicable to beach states that undergo rapid changes during storms.Therefore,it is necessary to carry out further research on beach state identification during storms.

Coastal erosion risk assessment of Hainan Island, China

Coastal erosion on islands is increasing due to sea level rise,frequent extreme events,and anthropogenic activities.However,studies on the multifactorial coastal erosion risk and the vulnerability of islands are limited.In this study,the Coastal Erosion Risk Assessment(CERA)method was applied for the first time to the study area in China to assess the erosion risk on the coast of Hainan Island;to explore the effects of coastal ocean dynamics,sediment movement characteristics,and anthropogenic construction;and to discuss the suitability of the method and countermeasures for coastal protection.The results show that the coast of Hainan Island shows high sensitivity,high value,low exposure,and moderate erosion.The whole island showed high vulnerability but low erosion risk,with the eastern region being more affected by erosion,particularly the eastern side of Wulong Port and Yalin Bay in Wenchang,and the shore section of Yalong Bay in Sanya,having a very high risk of coastal erosion.In addition,Monte Carlo simulation was used to check the applicability of the CERA method,and it was found that the rate of shoreline change,population density,and number of storms significantly contributed to coastal erosion,but only the short-term effects of sea level rise were considered.The effects of sea level rise and sediment grain size were primarily analyzed as influencing factors.The effects of sea level rise continue to strengthen,with coastal retreat expected to be greater than 2 m by the mid-21st century.Moreover,Hainan Island is primarily composed of the fine and medium sand types,which have little resistance to coastal erosion.Currently,the impact of sediment grain size is rarely considered in coastal erosion risk assessment studies.However,it can be incorporated into the indicator system in the future,and the spatial variation of indicators can be fully considered to strengthen the refinement study.

Calculating the sediment flux of the small coastal watersheds:a modification of global equations

Two kinds of regression equations are used to reproduce the sediment flux of the 26 small coastal watersheds in southeastern China.The first kind is the global equations suggested by Milliman and Syvitski(1992),Mulder and Syvitski(1996),Syvitski et al.(2003),and Syvitski and Milliman(2007).The second kind is the modified equations revised by the characteristics of the coastal watersheds,including the drainage area,mean water discharge,and mean sediment discharge.Compared with the observations of the hydrometric stations,the global equations overestimate the sediment flux by 1–2 orders of magnitude.By using the modified equations,the accuracy of the estimated sediment flux is significantly improved,with the relative error in the range of 7%–24%.The reason for the overestimation mainly caused by different parameters’domain and regression coefficients between global rivers and study coastal watersheds.This study demonstrates that modification needs to be considered when using global regression equations to reproduce the sediment flux of the small coastal watersheds in southeastern China.

Predicting sediment flux from continental shelf islands,southeastern China

Continental shelf islands are contributors of terrestrial sediment supply to shelf regions,and the sediment flux from these islands shall be quantified.We calculated the sediment flux of continental shelf islands in the southeastern China using two empirical equations under two preconditions.The first,the sediment load/yield of the islands has the same pattern as the adjacent small,mountainous rivers along the coastline;and the second,each of the islands was treated as a single catchment.The results show that the sediment supply from these islands reached an order of magnitude of 1 Mt/a,which is comparable to the supply from the local smaller rivers.A sensitivity analysis indicates that this value represents the lower limit of estimate;if the accurate amount of sub-catchments of any island is considered,then this value will be enhanced slightly.This study demonstrates that the sediment supply from continental shelf islands to oceans is an important factor affecting the regional sedimentation and,therefore,should be paid with attention.

Tracking historical storm records from high-barrier lagoon deposits on the southeastern coast of Hainan Island,China

The relationship between storm activity and global warming remains uncertain.To better understand storm–climate relationships,coastal lagoon deposits are increasingly being investigated because they could provide high-resolution storm records long enough to cover past climate changes.However,site-specific sediment dynamics and high barriers may bias storm reconstructions.Here,we aimed to investigate these factors through the reconstruction of five distinct storm records(XCL-01,XC-03,XC-06,XC-07,XC-08)from different water depths in a lagoon with a high barrier(i.e.,Xincun Lagoon of Hainan Island).Sediment cores were characterized using high-resolution grain size and XRF measurements,to identify storm events.These data were coupled with a numerical simulation to obtain bed shear stress data with high-spatial resolution to better understand storm-induced sediment transport mechanisms.^(210) Pb dating and Pb pollution chronostratigraphic markers indicated that the chronology of the storm deposit sequences of the cores span the period between 117 a and 348 a.The grain size and XRF results indicated numerous,highly variable and short-duration fluctuations,suggesting that storm-induced coarse-grained sediments were deposited at these core sites.The inconsistent storm events recorded in these cores suggest that these sites have different preservation potentials for storm deposits.However,the consistence between storm sediment records and historical documents for Core XCL-01 indicates that high-barrier lagoons could provide long-term storm event records with high preservation potential.

Geometric modeling of Holocene large-river delta growth patterns,as constrained by environmental settings

Topographic/bathymetric conditions of the continental shelf can significantly influence the long-term growth of river deltas.In particular,these conditions constrain the accommodation space for sedimentation in the deltaic areas.In this study,we use a conceptual geometric model to evaluate the role played by this factor,on the basis of the principle of mass conservation.The Ganges-Brahmaputra,Mekong and Nile deltas are examined as three typical examples,in terms of their different original seabed morphologies.The control variate method is applied to eliminate the effect of the difference in model input variables.The results show that,assuming a constant sediment load,the delta growth rate will decrease with time;a higher value of the original seabed slope leads to a lower shoreline progradation rate for the subaerial delta and a higher growth rate for the subaqueous delta.Thus,the original seabed morphology represented by slope is a critical factor affecting the evolution of Holocene large-river deltas.These results explain the interrelationships between sediment load,deltaic plain area,and the original seabed slopes for the 27 large-river deltas worldwide,located in the middle/low latitudes,with different tectonic backgrounds.In the future,the conceptual geometric model may be combined with sediment dynamic modeling to identify more details of the evolution of these deltas.