Trigno River Mouth Evolution via Littoral Drift Rose

Abstract

A mid-term analysis of shoreline evolution was carried out in the present paper for the Trigno river mouth area (5.2 km), located in the northern part of the Molise coast region (southeast Italy). The littoral drift rose (LDR) concept was employed, coupled to the GENESIS one-line model, to produce numerical simulations. The LDR graph was used to define a single, time-invariant, “equivalent wave” component (EW), which was supposed to entirely rule the shoreline changes. Given the inherent bimodality affecting the Molise wave climate, EW could result not significant in forecasting shoreline evolution, since both a climate inversion and a time-varying diffusion extra effect are expected. These aspects, never investigated in the literature, are deepened in the present paper, with the main aims of firstly assessing the explanatory power of the LDR equivalent wave and its significance within a bimodal climate, and secondly checking the role of a time-varying diffusivity. Results confirmed the reliability of the EW concept, even within a bimodal climate. Moreover, the possible effect of a time-varying diffusion, which is expected with a large directional variability, produced insignificant results with respect to the EW.

Keywords

• beach processes
• shoreline erosion
• littoral drift rose
• coastal morphodynamics
• shoreline diffusion