High-resolution, large-scale laboratory measurements of a sandy beach and dynamic cobble berm revetment

Abstract

High quality laboratory measurements of nearshore waves and morphology change at, or near prototype-scale are essential to support new understanding of coastal processes and enable the development and validation of predictive models. The DynaRev experiment was completed at the GWK large wave flume over 8 weeks during 2017 to investigate the response of a sandy beach to water level rise and varying wave conditions with and without a dynamic cobble berm revetment, as well as the resilience of the revetment itself. A large array of instrumentation was used throughout the experiment to capture: (1) wave transformation from intermediate water depths to the runup limit at high spatio-temporal resolution, (2) beach profile change including wave-by-wave changes in the swash zone, (3) detailed hydro and morphodynamic measurements around a developing and a translating sandbar.