Physical and biological dynamic coastal processes and their role in coastal recovery (BLUE-coast)

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The BLUE-coast consortium addresses NERC highlight topic B, Coastal morphology: coastal sediment budgets and theirrole in coastal recovery. This project will adopt a holistic and multidisciplinary approach, combining the expertise ofbiologists, coastal engineers, geologists, geomorphologists and oceanographers with complementary experimental (fieldand laboratory) and numerical skills, to understand what processes control the coastal system dynamics and answer therelevant scientific questions.BLUE-coast will explicitly address uncertainties in the prediction of medium-term (years) and long -term (decadal andlonger) regional sediment budgets and better understand morphological change and how the coast recovers aftersequences of events, such as storms by: (i) improving representation of both transportable and source material within thecoastal zone within models; (ii) establishing how transportable material is mediated by the ecological system usingexemplar habitats representative of the UK coastal zone; (iii) assessing sensitivities of this mixed-sediment physical andbiological system to possible changes in external forcing, including the combined impact of multiple variables andsequences of events, with the goal of understanding the internal dynamics of the system (e.g. nonlinearities, criticalthresholds, tipping points, precursors and antecedent conditions) in parallel with assessments of behavioural uncertainties,and (iv) reduce uncertainties in medium to long -term prediction of regional sediment budgets and morphological change.Project Overview: the scope of the Highlight Topic sets a requirement for quantitative knowledge on both physical andbiological dynamic coastal processes in order to improve hydrodynamic model predictions of regional sediment budgetsand morphological change. To deliver an integrated, holistic and cost effective response, our main activities will combine (i)a detailed study of representative shelf sea landscapes that spans the full variety of organism-sediment conditions typicallyobserved in temperate coasts, with (ii) in situ validation studies of key processes, and (iii) manipulative laboratory and fieldexperiments aimed at unambiguously identifying causal relationships and establishing generality, and (iv) integration ofnew understanding of controls and effects on coastal morphodynamics at regional scales and under environmental forcing.By undertaking a substantial element of in situ observation and process studies, we will directly quantify the effect ofantecedent conditions on coastal erosion and recovery, the effect of biota on mediating sediment fluxes and pathways andthe effect of event sequencing on coastal erosion and recovery, across a range of geographically significant sedimenthabitats. These data will act as calibration and validation datasets for existing and innovative numerical models that will beable to simulate the coastal morphological consequences of key biological and physical drivers, alone and in combination.We will gain mechanistic understanding and achieve generality by performing carefully controlled experiments, generatingdifferent flow regimes using flumes, tracking changes during natural events using state-of-the-art field measurementtechnology and, in the laboratory, using intact sediments and sediment communities exposed to anticipated futureconditions (warming, ocean acidification, nutrient loading). As it is not feasible to quantify all the relevant morphodynamicprocesses at high spatial resolution across the entire UK coast, our approach is to address the principal objectives through4 interdisciplinary workpackages that follow a logical progression of scientific themes.