Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Shoreface Controls on Barrier Evolution and Shoreline Change

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Barrier Dynamics and Response to Changing Climate

Abstract

Barriers exist in a continuum of forms, which are fundamentally governed by processes that shape the shoreface to determine the envelope available for sediment accommodation. This envelope is contained between the shoreface and underlying surface defined by the continental shelf and coastal plain (i.e., the substrate). Barrier form also depends on coastal change that is constrained, following reasonably well-established principles, by the volume and type of sediment supply (or loss) and rates of change in sea level that modify the shoreface and associated accommodation potential. While the shoreface is therefore significant to barrier form and behavior, processes that shape the shoreface itself remain poorly understood. In particular, systematic long-term evolution of the shoreface, which is evident in geological data, indicates not only a time-varying morphology, but also a lagged response to environmental change. Such shoreface evolution has implications for barrier evolution (and vice versa). In this chapter, we review (1) relations between shoreface and barrier form, (2) limits to knowledge on shoreface behavior and insights from depositional records from which systematic changes over time can be inferred, and (3) exploratory experiments on the morphodynamic timescale of shoreface change. The third part of the review derives from results of experimental modeling of combined shoreface and barrier evolution constrained by geologic data. The numerical experiments demonstrate that, on intermediate timescales (decades to centuries) that are most relevant to coastal management and planning, adjustments are dominated by sediment exchanges between the beach and shallower portions of the shoreface in response to rapid changes in boundary conditions, especially sea level. Significant morphodynamic hysteresis can be expected from the partial adjustment of lower shoreface geometry during sea-level change, resulting in ongoing barrier evolution and shoreline migration after the stabilization of boundary conditions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Aagaard T, Hughes MG (2017) Equilibrium shoreface profiles: a sediment transport approach. Mar Geol 390:321–330. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2016.12.013

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aagaard T, Sorensen P (2012) Coastal profile response to sea level rise: a process-based approach. Earth Surf Process Landf 37:354–362. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.2271

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ashton AD, Lorenzo-Trueba J (2018) Morphodynamics of barrier response to sea-level rise. In: Moore LJ, Murray AB (eds) Barrier dynamics and response to changing climate. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Beets DJ, van der Valk L, Stive MJF (1992) Holocene evolution of the coast of Holland. Mar Geol 103:423–443

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beets DJ, Adam JF, van der Spek A (2000) The Holocene evolution of the barrier and the back-barrier basins of Belgium and the Netherlands as a function of late Weichselian morphology, relative sea-level rise and sediment supply. Neth J Geosci 79:3–16

    Google Scholar 

  • Birkemeier WA (1985) Field data on seaward limit of profile change. J Waterw Ports Coasts Ocean Eng 111:598–602

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bruun P (1954) Coastal erosion and the development of beach profiles. Beach Erosion Board, USACE, Washington, p 79

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruun P (1962) Sea level rise as a cause of shore erosion. J Waterw Harb Div 88:117–130

    Google Scholar 

  • Cant DJ (1991) Geometric modelling of facies migration: theoretical development of facies successions and local unconformities. Basin Res 3:51–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2117.1991.tb00139.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Church JA, White NJ (2011) Sea-level rise from the late 19th to the early twenty-first century. Surv Geophys 32:585–602. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-011-9119-1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cornaglia P (1889) On beaches. In: Fisher JS, Dolan R (eds) Beach processes and coastal hydrodynamics. Benchmark papers in geology, vol 39. Dowden, Hutchins and Ross, Stroudsberg, pp 11–26

    Google Scholar 

  • Costas S, Ferreira Ó, Plomaritis TA, Leorri E (2016) Coastal barrier stratigraphy for Holocene high-resolution sea-level reconstruction. Sci Rep 6:38,726. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep38726

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cowell PJ, Roy PS, Jones RA (1992) Shoreface translation model: computer simulation of coastal-sand-body response to sea level rise. Math Comput Simul 33:603–608

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cowell PJ, Roy PS, Jones RA (1995) Simulation of large-scale coastal change using a morphological behavior model. Mar Geol 126:45–61

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cowell PJ, Hanslow DJ, Meleo JF (1999a) The shoreface. In: Short AD (ed) Handbook of beach and shoreface morphodynamics. Wiley, New York, pp 39–71

    Google Scholar 

  • Cowell PJ, Roy PS, Cleveringa J, de Boer PL (1999b) Simulating coastal systems tracts using the shoreface translation model. Soc Econ Palaeontol Miner Spec Publ 62:165–175

    Google Scholar 

  • Cowell PJ, Stive MJF, Roy PS, Kaminsky GM, Buijsman MC, Thom BG, Wright LD (2001) Shoreface sand supply to beaches. In: Edge BL (ed) Coastal engineering 2000—proceedings of 27th international coastal engineering conference, Sydney, pp 2495–2508

    Google Scholar 

  • Cowell PJ, Stive MJF, Niedoroda AW, de Vriend HJ, Swift DJP, Kaminsky GM, Capobianco M (2003a) The coastal-tract (part 1): a conceptual approach to aggregated modeling of low-order coastal change. J Coast Res 19:812–827

    Google Scholar 

  • Cowell PJ, Stive MJF, Niedoroda AW, Swift DJP, de Vriend HJ, Buijsman MC, Nicholls RJ, Roy PS, Kaminsky GM, Cleveringa J, Reed CW, de Boer PL (2003b) The coastal-tract (part 2): applications of aggregated modeling of lower-order coastal change. J Coast Res 19:828–848

    Google Scholar 

  • Cowell PJ, Thom BG, Jones RA, Everts CH, Simanovic D (2006) Management of uncertainty in predicting climate-change impacts on beaches. J Coast Res 22:232–245

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Curray JR (1964) Transgressions and regressions. In: Miller RL (ed) Papers in marine geology. Macmillan, New York, pp 175–203

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies AG, van Rijn LC, Damgaard JS, van de Graaff J, Ribberink JS (2002) Intercomparison of research and practical sand transport models. Coast Eng 46:1–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dean RG (1977) Equilibrium beach profiles: U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Department of Civil Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark

    Google Scholar 

  • Dougherty AJ (2014) Extracting a record of Holocene storm erosion and deposition preserved in the morphostratigraphy of a prograded coastal barrier. Cont Shelf Res 86:116–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csr.2013.10.014

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fenneman NM (1902) Development of the profile of equilibrium of the subaqueous shore terrace. J Geol 10:1–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodwin ID, Stables MA, Olley JM (2006) Wave climate, sand budget and shoreline alignment evolution of the Iluka-Woody Bay sand barrier, northern New South Wales, Australia, since 3000 yr BP. Mar Geol 226:127–144

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hallermeier RJ (1981) A profile zonation for seasonal sand beaches from wave climate. Coast Eng 4:253–277

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Houser C, Barrineau P, Hammond B, Saari B, Rentschler E, Trimble S, Wernette P, Weymer B, Young S (2018) Role of the foredune in controlling barrier island response to sea level rise. In: Moore LJ, Murray AB (eds) Barrier dynamics and response to changing climate. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoyt JH (1967) Barrier island formation. Geol Soc Am Bull 78:1123–1136

    Google Scholar 

  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2013) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. In: Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgley PM (eds) Contribution of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p 1535

    Google Scholar 

  • Johnson DW (1919) Shore processes and shoreline development. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Kinsela MA, Cowell PJ (2015) Controls on shoreface response to sea level change. In: Proceedings of coastal sediments ’15, San Diego, World Scientific Publishing, 2015

    Google Scholar 

  • Kinsela MA, Daley MJA, Cowell PJ (2016) Origins of Holocene coastal strandplains in Southeast Australia: shoreface sand supply driven by disequilibrium morphology. Mar Geol 374:14–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.margeo.2016.01.010

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lorenzo-Trueba J, Ashton AD (2014) Rollover, drowning, and discontinuous retreat: distinct modes of barrier response to sea-level rise arising from a simple morphodynamic model. J Geophys Res Earth 119:779–801. https://doi.org/10.1002/2013JF002941

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mellett CL, Plater AJ (2018) Drowned barriers as archives of coastal-response to sea-level rise. In: Moore LJ, Murray AB (eds) Barrier dynamics and response to changing climate. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore LJ, List JH, Williams SJ, Stolper D (2010) Complexities in barrier island response to sea level rise: Insights from numerical model experiments, North Carolina Outer Banks. J Geophys Res 115:F03004. https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JF001299

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore LJ, Goldstein EB, Vinent OD, Walters D, Kirwan M, Rebecca L, Murray AB, Ruggiero P (2018) The role of ecomorphodynamic feedbacks and landscape couplings in influencing the response of barriers to changing climate. In: Moore LJ, Murray AB (eds) Barrier dynamics and response to changing climate. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray AB, Moore LJ (2018) Geometric constraints on long-term barrier migration: from simple to surprising. In: Moore LJ, Murray AB (eds) Barrier dynamics and response to changing climate. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholls RJ, Birkemeier WA, Lee GH (1998) Evaluation of depth of closure using data from Duck, NC, USA. Mar Geol 148:179–201

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Niedoroda AW, Swift DJP (1981) Maintenance of the shoreface by wave orbital currents and mean flow—observations from the Long Island coast. Geophys Res Lett 8:337–340

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Niedoroda AW, Swift DJP, Hopkins TS, Ma CM (1984) Shoreface morphodynamics on wave-dominated coasts. Mar Geol 60:331–354

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nummedal D, Riley GW, Templet PL (1993) High-resolution sequence architecture: a chronostratigraphic model based on equilibrium profile studies. In: Posamentier HW, Summerhayes CP, Haq BU, Allen GP (eds) Sequence stratigraphy and Facies associations. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, pp 55–68

    Google Scholar 

  • Oliver TSN, Tamura T, Hudson JP, Woodroffe CD (2017) Integrating millennial and interdecadal shoreline changes: morpho-sedimentary investigation of two prograded barriers in southeastern Australia. Geomorphology 288:129–147. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2017.03.019

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ortiz AC, Ashton AD (2016) Exploring shoreface dynamics and a mechanistic explanation for a morphodynamic depth of closure. J Geophys Res Earth 121(2):442–464. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JF003699

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patterson DC (2012) Shoreward sand transport outside the surf zone, northern gold coast, Australia. In: Proceedings of 33rd international conference on coastal engineering, Santander, 2012

    Google Scholar 

  • Roy PS, Cowell PJ, Ferland MA, Thom BG (1994) Wave dominated coasts. In: Carter RWG, Woodroffe CD (eds) Coastal evolution: late quaternary shoreline morphodynamics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 121–186

    Google Scholar 

  • Roy PS, Zhuang WY, Birch GF, Cowell PJ, Congxiang L (1997) Quaternary geology of the Forster-Tuncurry coast and shelf southeast Australia. Geological Survey of New South Wales. Department of Mineral Resources, Sydney

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruggiero P, Hacker S, Seabloom E, Zarnetske P (2018) The role of vegetation in determining dune morphology, exposure to sea-level rise, and storm-induced coastal hazards: a U.S. Pacific Northwest perspective. In: Moore LJ, Murray AB (eds) Barrier dynamics and response to changing climate. Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Sloss LL (1962) Stratigraphical models in exploration. J Sediment Petrol 32:415–422

    Google Scholar 

  • Stive MJF, de Vriend HJ (1995) Modeling shoreface profile evolution. Mar Geol 126:235–248

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stive MJF, Cowell PJ, Nicholls RJ (2009) Impacts of global environmental change on beaches, cliffs and deltas. In: Slaymaker O, Spencer T, Embleton-Hamann C (eds) Geomorphology and global environmental change. International Association of Geomorphologists. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 158–179

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Stolper D, List JH, Thieler ER (2005) Simulating the evolution of coastal morphology and stratigraphy with a new morphological-behaviour model (GEOMBEST). Mar Geol 218:17–36

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Storms JEA (2003) Event-based stratigraphic simulation of wave-dominated shallow-marine environments. Mar Geol 199:83–100

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Storms JEA, Weltje GJ, van Dijke JJ, Geel CR, Kroonenberg SB (2002) Process-response modeling of wave-dominated coastal systems: simulating evolution and stratigraphy on geological timescales. J Sediment Res 72:226–239

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sweet WV, Kopp RE, Weaver CP, Obeysekera J, Horton RM, Thieler ER, Zervas C (2017) Global and regional sea level rise scenarios for the United States. Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 083. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Silver Spring, pp 55

    Google Scholar 

  • Swift DJP, Thorne JA (1991) Sedimentation on continental margins, I: a general model for shelf sedimentation. In: Swift DJP, Oertal GF, Tillman RW, Thorne JA (eds) Shelf sand and sandstone bodies—geometry, facies and sequence stratigraphy. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, pp 3–31

    Google Scholar 

  • Tamura T (2012) Beach ridges and prograded beach deposits as palaeoenvironmental records. Earth Sci Rev 114:279–297

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thom BG (1984) Transgressive and regressive stratigraphies of coastal sand barriers in southeast Australia. Mar Geol 56:137–158

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thom BG, Roy PS (1985) Relative sea levels and coastal sedimentation in southeast Australia in the Holocene. J Sediment Petrol 55:257–264

    Google Scholar 

  • Tortora P, Cowell PJ, Adlam K (2009) Transgressive coastal systems (1st part): barrier migration processes and geometric principles. J Mediterranean Earth Sci 1:1–13

    Google Scholar 

  • van der Valk L (1992) Mid- and Late-Holocene coastal evolution in the beach-barrier area of the western Netherlands. Ph.D thesis, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Walters D, Moore LJ, Duran Vinent O, Fagherazzi S, Mariotti G (2014) Interactions between barrier islands and backbarrier marshes affect island system response to sea level rise: insights from a coupled model. Case Rep Med 119:2013–2031. https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JF003091

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolinsky MA, Murray AB (2009) A unifying framework for shoreline migration: 2. Application to wave-dominated coasts. J Geophys Res Earth Surf 114:F01009. https://doi.org/10.1029/2007jf000856

    Google Scholar 

  • Woodroffe CD, Chappell J, Thom BG, Wallensky E (1989) Depositional model of a macrotidal estuary and floodplain, South Alligator River, Northern Australia. Sedimentology 36:737–756

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wright LD (1995) Morphodynamics of inner continental shelves. CRC Press, Boca Raton

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Laura Moore and Brad Murray provided valuable comments on the manuscript, although the authors remain responsible for any shortcomings.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geosciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Peter J. Cowell

  2. School of Geosciences, Faculty of Science, The University of Sydney, Madsen Building (F09), Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Michael A. Kinsela

  3. Department of Coastal and Marine Science, Office of Environment and Heritage, 59 Goulburn Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000, Australia

    Michael A. Kinsela

Authors
  1. Peter J. Cowell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Michael A. Kinsela
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael A. Kinsela .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department Geological Sciences, Curriculum for the Environment and Ecology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

    Laura J. Moore

  2. Division of Earth and Ocean Sciences, Nicholas School of the Environment, Center for Nonlinear and Complex Systems, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA

    A. Brad Murray

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Cowell, P.J., Kinsela, M.A. (2018). Shoreface Controls on Barrier Evolution and Shoreline Change. In: Moore, L., Murray, A. (eds) Barrier Dynamics and Response to Changing Climate. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68086-6_8

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation