Nearshorewaves and littoral drift along a micro-tidalwave-dominated coast having comparable wind-sea and swell energy

Abstract

The nearshore wave characteristics and variations in littoral drift (longshore sediment transport; LST) are estimated based on different approaches for four years along the Vengurla coast, with comparable wind-sea and swell energy assessed. The waverider buoy-measured data at 15 m water depth is utilized as the input wave parameters along with the reanalysis model data, and the numerical wave model Delft-3D is used for estimating the nearshore wave parameters. The relative contribution of wind-seas and swells on LST rates are specifically examined. The clear prevalence of west-southwest waves implies the prevalence of south to north longshore sediment transport with net transport varying from 0.19-0.37 x 105 m3/yr. LST is strongly dependent on the breaker angle and a small change in the wave direction substantially alters the LST, and hence reanalysis/model data with coarse resolutions produce large errors (~38%) in the LST estimate. The annual gross LST rate based on integral wave parameters is only 58% considering the wind-seas and swells separately, since the wind-sea energy is comparable to swell energy, and the direction of these two systems differs significantly.