Sediment leakage on the beach and upper shoreface due to extreme storms

The quantification of sediment exchanges between the beach and the lower shoreface, although being still poorly understood, is required to adequately forecast long-term coastal evolution. The effect of extreme storms on the morphodynamics of the nearshore and the sediment budget of the coastal zone seems to be strongly conditioned by local parameters, which should be incorporated into studies of medium- and long-term coastal evolution. In the upper shoreface, the dynamics of shore-parallel bars in sandy coasts have been extensively studied, but their implications for the sediment budget remain controversial as it is unclear whether their evolution simply represents a morphological change or denotes an escape of sediment from the upper shoreface. In order to provide new knowledge to address these questions, fifteen topo-bathymetric surveys that extend from the emerged beach to 15 m water depth were carried out along 1 km of Castelldefels beach (Llobregat Delta, Barcelona, western Mediterranean Sea) during the period 2011-2022. Morphological variations on the shoreface are studied, volumetric changes are estimated and implications on sedimentary exchanges in the littoral profile are inferred. The largest morphological (volumetric) changes are caused by cross-shore displacements of the nearshore bars, usually onshore during fair-weather conditions and offshore during storms. Volumetric changes suggest that shoreline retreat and the erosion of the shallow section of the profile during the last decade provides sediment to both the distal upper shoreface and the lower shoreface. The resulting sediment budget in the profile is almost zero in absence of extreme storms, but becomes highly negative when including extreme storms events that cause a net offshore transfer of sediment from the upper to the lower shoreface and, probably, the inner shelf. The characteristics of the study area (morphology, sediments, waves, tides) and in-situ hydrodynamic measurements at the lower shoreface suggest that the main potential onshore transport mechanisms (velocity and acceleration skewness during low-mid energy event) are small, making a significant transfer of sediment from the lower shoreface towards the shallow beach area unlikely at interannual scales. Thus, the study area is an example of low-lying coastal stretch in which the potential long-term shoreline retreat caused by sea level rise cannot be fully compensated by the sediment supplied from the lower shoreface. Other mechanisms, such as sediment supplied by longshore transport, are needed to counteract this trend.