Wave, currents and sediment transport observed during the LEACOAST2 experiment

The LEACOAST2 project (http://pcwww.liv.ac.uk/civilCRG/leacoast2/) is studying the effect of a shore parallel breakwater system on the evolution of coastal morphology at Sea Palling on the east coast of England, facing the southern North Sea. Here there are strong tidal currents, and occasional storm wave conditions. The sediments are mixed with their composition ranging from coarse sand to silt supplied from the soft boulder clay cliffs to the north; these sediments are quite mobile under tide and wave stirring. The breakwaters have trapped sand in embayments, with tombolos and salients behind the breakwaters, while some sand bypassing outside the system seems to occur. As part of this project data were collected from three instrumented tripods deployed near the breakwaters, during two field campaigns (March–May 2006 and October 2006–January 2007). The instrumentation includes acoustic and optical instrumentation (ADCP, ADV, LISST and bedform scanners). Observations of waves, currents and bathymetry have also been made using an X-band radar deployed for two years to monitor the whole area over a range of several kilometers. A large dataset has been successfully obtained. Here we present an overview of the observed hydrodynamic conditions, sediment transport and bedforms from this experiment.