UCLA

Sea-level rise will increase the frequency and severity of coastal flooding events. Even minor water level increases will propagate wave energy landward, promote coastal erosion and, in turn, jeopardize backshore infrastructure. Critical infrastructure requires evolving coastal management and advanced engineering designs to facilitate long term urban coastal realignment compatible with rising seas. Traditional coastal engineering uses hard infrastructure such as sea walls and revetments to protect urbanized backshores. Infrastructure failure during extreme water levels leads to catastrophic human and economic consequences. Evolving, nature-inspired features such as living shorelines and artificial dunes present an attractive hardscape alternative. Although dune erosion modeling is prevalent in the literature, there is a paucity of information regarding the construction, design and efficacy of the hybrid dune counterparts, especially on energetic, wave-dominated coastlines (e.g., Pacific). The objective of this research is to advance nature-based coastal engineering through high-resolution spatiotemporal observations and numerical modeling.