Author(s)

O. Ferreira & J. Alveirinho Dias

Abstract

Storms are the main mechanism responsible for coastal erosion on open coastlines. In the last few years an effort has been made to apply and validate simple models determining coastal retreat and dune erosion due to storms on highly energetic coasts. In this study, the convolution method was applied to determine the impact of two hypothetical storms called the "mean storm" (return period of 0.7 years) and the "century storm" (return period of 100 years) on the coast between Aveiro and Cape Mondego (Northwest Portugal). The application of the model to different sites resulted in a prediction of beach erosion volumes between 70 and llOnf/m for the "mean storm", without showing dune retreat at any of the analysed sites. According to calculations, the "century storm" would be expected

Keywords