Morphological Monitoring of a Storm-Dominated Microtidal Barrier Island, Galveston Island's Westend, Texas, USA

Date

2004

Authors

Joiner, Nicole
Wren, P. Ansley
Dellapenna, Timothy
McInnes, Andrew

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Abstract

1 CD-ROM with powerpoint/poster, project background, and project abstract. This pilot project is an ongoing monitoring program which quantifies the relationships between temporal and spatial scales of morphologic change on a heavily developed and modified transgressive barrier island. This project incorporates not only traditional cross-shore profiling techniques, but also established an along-shore spatial monitoring technique to determine shoreline migration. This involves tracing the wet line immediately after the high tide utilizing a post processed kinematic GPS mounted on an all terrain vehicle. Weekly monitoring enables determination of shoreline migration and deviation due to storm events and annual cycles. Archiving and analyses of these shore-term changes provides a long time series of shoreline position which will be used to project future coastal change. Preliminary results indicate that in response to astronomical tidal cycles and non-storm wave energies there is a net sediment migration from the northeast to the southwest. In October 2004 the Upper Texas Coast experienced a peripheral high energy event due to Hurricane Ivan. Consequently, the existing nourished templates were heavily scoured and introduced into the littoral system resulting in significant accretion at the extreme west end of the island.

Description

Keywords

Galveston Island, morphologic change

Citation