RUI: Boulder beaches—the understudied archive on high-energy coasts

随着海平面上升和高能海浪对沿海基础设施的攻击变得更加频繁，对高能海岸的研究越来越有必要，这既是为了了解海岸对风暴和海岸灾害的反应，也是工程师在努力改善海岸保护方法时提供的资源。巨石海滩是高能量海岸风暴的有形记录，但对它们的研究如此之少，以至于缺乏数据和理解，使它们无法融入海岸建模。这项研究将提供更好的了解巨石海滩如何随着时间的推移对海浪做出反应，为面对海平面上升和气候变化时可持续海岸的知识库做出贡献。更广泛的影响有几个层面，包括教育、社会价值和外展。研究人员将让本科生研究人员参与这项工作的每个阶段，并特别关注多样性和包容性。这些数据对工程师来说将是有价值的，因为巨石海滩是抛石和碎石的天然类似物，通常用于海岸保护，其性能和破坏仍在研究中。最后，与专业音乐家的合作将使用打击乐和声乐来制作海浪频谱的原创音乐表示法，通过较小的波组之间的相互作用产生大浪，以及波浪对巨石海滩的影响。这一创新的交叉方法与背景教育信息(书面和口头文字、实地照片、模型和视频，整合到演示文稿中并向普通观众推介)捆绑在一起，将向普通公众传播沿海地球科学信息。主要研究人员、学生和合作者将在爱尔兰的22个地点使用实际测量和航空摄影测量来测量碎屑种群和海滩形态--包括巨石大小、形状、方向、分类和填充以及地形剖面。他们还将利用碎屑磨损痕迹的微观测量来量化基岩台地侵蚀，并为巨石海滩和潮上海岸巨石矿床之间的关系建立地貌背景。将通过摄影测量DEM的数值差分来分析多年的重复测量。这将为巨石海滩对风暴的反应提供详细和准确的记录，从量化海滩地形的变化(确定侵蚀和/或淤积区)到跟踪个别巨石的移动。这将是第一次对巨石海滩环境进行多参数研究，应该会对这个复杂的海岸系统产生一个综合的了解。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

As sea level rises and high-energy wave attack on coastal infrastructure becomes more frequent, there is a growing need for studies of high-energy coasts, both to understand coastal response to storms and coastal hazards, and also as a resource for engineers as they work to improve coastal protection approaches. Boulder beaches are the tangible record of storms on high-energy coasts, but they have been so little studied that a lack of data and understanding have prevented their integration into coastal modeling. This study will provide a better understanding of how boulder beaches respond to waves over time, contributing to the knowledgebase for sustainable coasts in the face of sea level rise and climate change. Several tiers of broader impacts span education, societal value, and outreach. The investigators will engage undergraduate researchers in every phase of this work with particular attention to diversity and inclusion. The data will be valuable to engineers, because boulder beaches are natural analogues for riprap and rubble, commonly used for coastal protection, performance and failure of which are still being studied. Finally, a collaboration with professional musicians will use percussion and vocal music to produce original musical representations of wave spectra, the generation of large waves by interactions among smaller wave sets, and wave impacts on boulder beaches. Bundled with contextual educational information (written and spoken word, field photographs, models and videos, integrated into presentations and pitched for general audiences), this innovative crossover approach will transmit coastal geoscience information to the general public. The principal investigators, students, and collaborators will measure clast populations and beach morphology—including boulder sizes, shapes, orientations, sorting, and packing, as well as topographic profiles—at twenty-two sites in Ireland, using both hands-on measurements and aerial photogrammetry. They will also quantify bedrock platform erosion using micro-measurements of clast abrasion trails and establish geomorphic context for the relationship between boulder beaches and supratidal coastal boulder deposits. Repeat measurements over multiple years will be analyzed via numerical differencing of photogrammetric DEMs. This will provide detailed and precise records of boulder beach response to storms, at all scales from quantifying changes in beach topography (identifying zones of erosion and/or aggradation), to tracking the movement of individual boulders. This will be the first multi-parametric study of the boulder beach environment, and should generate a synthetic understanding of this complex coastal system.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.