Modeling Barrier Island Response to Sea-Level Rise in the Outer Banks, North Carolina

Moore, Laura J.; List, Jeffrey H.; Williams, S. Jeffress; Stolper, David

doi:10.1061/40926(239)89

Cited by 16 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…GEOMBEST [5] Sediment transport models, driven by hydrodynamics, cannot yet address questions of large-scale coastal behavior such as the evolution of barrier islands over length scales of kilometers and time scales of decades to centuries and millennia. Morphological-behavior models, which are driven by changes in sediment supply, sea level rise, and shoreface geometry [e.g., Cowell et al, 1992;Roy et al, 1994;Cowell et al, 1995;Storms et al, 2002;Stolper et al, 2005;Moore et al, 2007], without simulating the detailed physical processes of sediment transport, currently provide the only means for testing the geometric validity of hypotheses regarding barrier island evolution. Though these models do not simulate barrier island evolution at the scale of individual storm events, and therefore cannot directly simulate changes from one equilibrium state to another, they are a valuable tool for assessing the vulnerability of a landward migrating barrier to a change in state.…”

Section: Morphological-behavior Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Quantitative assessments of the range of potential future barrier island evolution are also needed. Simplified barrier translation models [e.g., Bruun, 1962;Masetti et al, 2008;McNamara and Werner, 2008] and morphological-behavior models, also known as stratigraphic models [e.g., Cowell et al, 1992Cowell et al, , 1995Storms et al, 2002;Stolper et al, 2005;Moore et al, 2007], which simulate barrier island evolution over decadal to millennial time scales, currently provide the only quantitative method available for testing hypotheses regarding the large-scale evolution of barrier islands under changing conditions. The development of numerical experiments to explore potential future barrier island evolution, however, requires an improved understanding of how barrier islands have evolved throughout the Holocene and an assessment of the relative importance of factors critical to barrier island evolution over a range of time scales and in realistically complex scenarios where multiple parameters are changing at the same time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[4] To advance the understanding of Holocene barrier island evolution, we apply the morphological-behavior model GEOMBEST [Stolper et al, 2005;Moore et al, 2007] to a field site in the North Carolina Outer Banks. We select this location because it is one of the largest and most thoroughly investigated barrier island chains in the world.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Complexities in barrier island response to sea level rise: Insights from numerical model experiments, North Carolina Outer Banks

et al. 2010

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[1] Using a morphological-behavior model to conduct sensitivity experiments, we investigate the sea level rise response of a complex coastal environment to changes in a variety of factors. Experiments reveal that substrate composition, followed in rank order by substrate slope, sea level rise rate, and sediment supply rate, are the most important factors in determining barrier island response to sea level rise. We find that geomorphic threshold crossing, defined as a change in state (e.g., from landward migrating to drowning) that is irreversible over decadal to millennial time scales, is most likely to occur in muddy coastal systems where the combination of substrate composition, depthdependent limitations on shoreface response rates, and substrate erodibility may prevent sand from being liberated rapidly enough, or in sufficient quantity, to maintain a subaerial barrier. Analyses indicate that factors affecting sediment availability such as low substrate sand proportions and high sediment loss rates cause a barrier to migrate landward along a trajectory having a lower slope than average barrier island slope, thereby defining an "effective" barrier island slope. Other factors being equal, such barriers will tend to be smaller and associated with a more deeply incised shoreface, thereby requiring less migration per sea level rise increment to liberate sufficient sand to maintain subaerial exposure than larger, less incised barriers. As a result, the evolution of larger/less incised barriers is more likely to be limited by shoreface erosion rates or substrate erodibility making them more prone to disintegration related to increasing sea level rise rates than smaller/more incised barriers. Thus, the small/deeply incised North Carolina barriers are likely to persist in the near term (although their long-term fate is less certain because of the low substrate slopes that will soon be encountered). In aggregate, results point to the importance of system history (e.g., previous slopes, sediment budgets, etc.) in determining migration trajectories and therefore how a barrier island will respond to sea level rise. Although simple analytical calculations may predict barrier response in simplified coastal environments (e.g., constant slope, constant sea level rise rate, etc.), our model experiments demonstrate that morphological-behavior modeling is necessary to provide critical insights regarding changes that may occur in environments having complex geometries, especially when multiple parameters change simultaneously.

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Section: Morphological-behavior Modelingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Complexities in barrier island response to sea level rise: Insights from numerical model experiments, North Carolina Outer Banks

et al. 2010

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“…While some authors still favor this simple approach (Zhang et al, 2004), others have suggested that response to sea-level rise is more complex (Cooper and Pilkey, 2004;Davidson-Arnott, 2005). On a longer timescale, the morphological behavior model of Cowell et al (1995) provides an alternative approach and this approach is being used in a number of recent papers (Stolper et al, 2005;Moore et al, 2007).…”

Section: Barrier Islandsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…There is a growing body of literature on the potential accel eration of barrier erosion and migration as a result of increased rates of sea-level rise and attempts to model this on a decadal scale (Dean and Maurmeyer, 1983;Dubois, 1995;Eitner, 1996;List et al, 1997;Moore et al, 2007;FitzGerald et al, 2008;Plater et al, 2009). Dean and Maurmeyer adapted the Bruun rule for the special case of a barrier island and their model allowed for overwash and inlet transfers.…”

Section: Barrier Islandsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Wave-Dominated Coasts

Davidson‐Arnott

2011

Treatise on Estuarine and Coastal Science

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Decadal and seasonal changes in landcover at Padre Island: Implications for the role of the back‐barrier in signaling island state change

Fisher

Ewing

Vinent

2022

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Long‐term and seasonal geomorphological changes at Padre Island, Texas are identified and linked with potential external drivers. Aerial and satellite images from 1950 to 2018, monthly images from 2019 to 2020, and a 2018 LiDAR data set are used to assess long‐term and seasonal geomorphological changes within a 50 km2 area of Padre Island near Port Mansfield, Texas. Trends in landcover are evaluated by mapping and comparing the relative areal coverage of each facies. Vegetated dunes, absent initially, emerged in the fore‐island and expanded into the back‐barrier to cover 14% of the study area. The active vegetation‐free back‐barrier dune field steadily decreased in areal extent from 12% to 6% as vegetation spread. Nebkha dune coverage fluctuated between 4% and 7%. Expansive microbial mats colonized the wind tidal and deflation flats surrounding the vegetated dunes and back‐barrier dune field giving rise to a remarkably different landscape over the 50‐year period studied. An assessment of external forcing factors identifies increased rates of relative sea level rise and decreased sediment influx as the most likely primary factors driving the geomorphological changes. These changes have induced a widespread shift toward stabilization of island sediments by vegetation and microbial mats, which in turn has starved the back‐barrier of sediments resulting in low rates of accretion and increased flooding. These findings highlight the sensitivity of the back‐barrier and, in particular, the dune facies to changes in sea level and sediment supply, and show that microbial mats are effective at stabilizing island sediments and may be harbingers to barrier island response to rising sea level. As shown in this study, long‐term monitoring of geomorphic facies changes and topography can detect important shifts in the island state that can be used to inform decision making for these sensitive coastal landscapes.

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Modeling Barrier Island Response to Sea-Level Rise in the Outer Banks, North Carolina

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

Complexities in barrier island response to sea level rise: Insights from numerical model experiments, North Carolina Outer Banks

Complexities in barrier island response to sea level rise: Insights from numerical model experiments, North Carolina Outer Banks

Wave-Dominated Coasts

Decadal and seasonal changes in landcover at Padre Island: Implications for the role of the back‐barrier in signaling island state change

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