Modelización del comportamiento morfodinámico de las playas mediante el estudio de la profundización de removilización

Abstract

This paper concerns with a description of the variations in the disturbance depth across four open mesotidal beaches in the Cadiz littoral (SW Spain), along single tidal cycles, using rods and cores of marked beach sands inserted in the foreshore. The studied beaches show a quite wide range of morphologies, from reflective and barred dissipative to pure dissipative ones. Nevertheless, the energetic conditions of the coast remain more or less constant along its length. In this work the recorded disturbance depths have been compared with parameters like wave height, beach gradient and grain size distribution. As a conclusion, it has been obtained that the morphodynamic regime is the characteristic that better explains the spatial variation of the disturbance depth, as well as the different response of the beaches under broadly similar energetic conditions. In each case the morphodynamic situation controls the distribution and relative intensity of wave processes acting across the beach profile and, hence, the different rate of disturbance depth. The morphodynamic study of a beach permits an initial prediction of its morphological response under variable wave conditions.