Recent Coastal Dune Development: Effects of Sand Nourishments

Abstract BAKKER,M.A.J.; VANHETEREN, S.; VONHOGEN, L.M.; VAN DER SPEK, A.J.F., and VAN DER VALK, L., 2012. Recent coastal dune development: effects of sand nourishments. Much of the Dutch coast has been subject to structural erosion. From 1990 onward, sand nourishments have been used under a government policy of dynamic preservation. Annual monitoring and field inspections show that the structural erosion has decreased or even turned into coastal progradation after 1990. The monitoring data concern only morphodynamics and thus supply limited information on system-related geological processes driving the observed changes. Recently acquired ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data help establish the origin of sedimentary elements within the beach-foredune area, determine their decadal-scale preservation potential under the present nourishment policy, and demonstrate temporal and spatial accretion/erosion variability along nourished coasts. GPR images from a nonnourished retrograding barrier section show historica...