An aeolian transport model for the selection of dune restoration alternatives

Abstract

The landfall of hurricane Claudette in 2003 damaged and eroded most Texas coastal counties. The residents of Pointe San Luis on the west end of Galveston Island, Texas lost their protective dune front and experienced significant shoreline erosion. Following the storm, the Pointe San Luis Property Owner's Association contacted Texas A&M University to design a dune restoration strategy. The greatest natural contributor to dune reconstruction is the available sand delivered by aeolian transport. During the course of the study it became apparent that no model or software existed capable of demonstrating the effectiveness of available dune restoration alternatives. Building Beach©, a coastal aeolian sand transport simulator, was developed in response to this need. Based on discrete dynamics and requiring a minimum of technical input, the software allows coastal property owners, consultants, and coastal developers to graphically model the effectiveness of several dune restoration options including sand fence, planted vegetation, geo-textiles, and other solid protective barriers. The graphical output of Building Beach© enables the user to compare approximations of the performance of different restoration strategies to select the most effective option for a particular beach.