Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Coastal Education and Research Foundation
Résumé : Nearshore bars are generally present on sandy coasts and play a significant role in wave breaking and sediment exchange between beach and shoreface. The study area is located on the Languedoc-Roussillon coast in the Gulf of Lions (southern part of the French Mediterranean coast). This microtidal environment is classified as a wave-dominated coast. The sand coast displays different bar systems (single or multiple; straight or crescentic). The alongshore variability of bar morphology in the nearshore zone was investigated in August 2009 during one week, using a topo-bathymetric LIDAR data set (300 km(2)). LIDAR makes it possible to cover a large area in a very short time with a high resolution. The topo-bathymetric LIDAR offers the added benefit of morphological information about the beach-sea transition in very shallow water (below I in), data often difficult if not impossible to obtain with traditional techniques. The purpose of this paper is 1) to depict the distribution of bars and their characteristics along the 180 km coast of the Gulf of Lions; 2) to update the classifications of sand bars typologies in Languedoc-Roussillon; 3) to pay particular attention to the description of the intricate inner system. Globally, cross-shore distribution of subtidal morphologies is characterized by both an outer and an inner system. The outer system is crescent-shaped in the south and straight in the northern part with a distinctive regional delimitation. The inner system comprises an inner bar and, near the coast, a complex fluctuating bar called Low Bar Beach (LBB). Several intermediate states were identified and added to the new classification proposed in this paper. These results clearly emphasize the importance of LIDAR technology for a better understanding of bar behaviour and single and/or multi-bar beach organisation.
ISSN: 0749-0208

hal-00783187
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00783187

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Coastal Education and Research Foundation
Résumé : The south part nearshore zone of the Gulf of Lions coast (Mediterranean Sea) is characterized by a double crescentic sandbar system. During the winter 2007, a campaign of intensive hydrodynamical measurements (current profiles) was realized. During this campaign, based mainly on ADCPs, the maximal recorded wave height was 1.5 m. Four events were observed; two of those had northern incidence, one with southern incidence and a last one with frontal incidence. This paper proposes 3D hydrodynamical circulation maps over this microtidal bar system. The currents described reveals rip, bed-return and longshore currents strongly influenced by the wind-waves forcing and the bathymetry. At the apex of the oblique incidence events, the longshore component is the most important. The breaker zone is only located over the inner bar. During storm waning conditions, the cross-shore currents appear over the trough of the outer bar. The hydrodynamic circulation is then compared with other observations made in the literature.
ISSN: 0749-0208
Szczecin, Poland

hal-00767593
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00767593

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD
Résumé : International audience
This work aims to better understand the physical processes governing the wave propagation in a vertically shearedcurrent and the resulting nearshore circulation patterns. It is based on a high resolution hydro-morphodynamic fieldcampaign, ROUSTY2014, collecting a comprehensive hydro-morphodynamical dataset during a full winter season.The overall analysis highlights three main circulation patterns, largely controled by the bathymetric features and byco-working or competing wind and waves forcings. Regarding the vertical structuration of the circulation, most of fieldobservations shown seaward directed circulation with onshore component close to the air/sea surface whose intensityvaries according to incoming wave conditions. Forth, vertical shear increase when breaking happen close to sensorlocation and orientation of mean circulation depend on wind direction.
35th International Conference on Coastal Engineering
Antalya, Turkey

hal-01426582
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01426582

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
The Maguelone shore extends along the northern coast of the Gulf of Lions, west of the Rhone Delta and east of high-gradient coastal streams that have provided most of the clastic sediments to the Gulf of Lions margin since the early Miocene. This 10 km-wide area is constituted by a small coastal watershed (15 km long) in low-lying carbonate hills, a kilometre-wide marsh, a sandy beach barrier and a shoreface experiencing local low sedimentation rates. This onshore-offshore transition zone is a key area to understand the relationships between erosion, by-pass, deposition and preservation processes. Unlike the neighbouring Rhone deposits that display numerous thick deltaic sequences related to a continuous sediment flux, the Maguelone shore exhibits peculiar sedimentary bodies. The analysis of about 250 km of new VHR seismic profiles acquired over the study area, 9 short cores and outcrops data allowed us to determine the three-dimensional high-resolution geometry of the coastal system tracts from Quaternary to present-day. This revealed dominant denudation processes in the Upstream catchments associated with the formation of incised valleys during Quaternary lowstands. In addition, this study investigates the erosion and deposition mechanisms controlled by littoral hydrodynamics that have been taken place on this shore since the last transgression. In particular, metre-high and hundreds of metre-long sandy bodies constructed by alongshore hydrodynamics were identified and their effect on the morphodynamics of the whole littoral system is discussed. The Maguelone shore can be used as an experimental study for onshore/offshore dynamics under the influence of microtidal wave/current hydrodynamics and very low river-derived sediment flux during a eustatic cycle. Geometry of system tracts across flood plain to shoreface is usually considered to be controlled by relative sea-level changes, and is successfully analysed with 2D sequence stratigraphy cross-shore models. It is observed that in areas like the Maguelone shore, traditional sequence stratigraphy methods might not be fully relevant and need to integrate alongshore hydrodynamical processes.
ISSN: 0025-3227

hal-00421060
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00421060
DOI : 10.1016/j.margeo.2009.06.008