Coastal Engineering 44 (2001) 79 99
www.elsevier.com/locate/coastaleng
Cross-shore distribution of longshore sediment transport:
comparison between predictive formulas and field measurements
Atilla Bayram a, Magnus Larson a,*, Herman C. Miller b, Nicholas C. Kraus c
a
Department of Water Resources Engineering, Lund University, Box 118, S-22100, Lund, Sweden
b
Field Research Facility, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, 1261 Duck Road, Duck, NC, 27949-4471, USA
c
Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, 3909 Halls Ferry Road,
Vicksburg, MS, 39180-6199, USA
Received 29 September 2000; received in revised form 12 July 2001; accepted 18 July 2001
Abstract
The skill of six well-known formulas developed for calculating the longshore sediment transport rate was evaluated in the
present study. Formulas proposed by Bijker [Bijker, E.W., 1967. Some considerations about scales for coastal models with
movable bed. Delft Hydraulics Laboratory, Publication 50, Delft, The Netherlands; Journal of the Waterways, Harbors and
Coastal Engineering Division, 97 (4) (1971) 687.], Engelund Hansen [Engelund, F., Hansen, E., 1967. A Monograph On
Sediment Transport in Alluvial Streams. Teknisk Forlag, Copenhagen, Denmark], Ackers White [Journal of Hydraulics
Division, 99 (1) (1973) 2041], Bailard Inman [Journal of Geophysical Research, 86 (C3) (1981) 2035], Van Rijn [Journal of
Hydraulic Division, 110 (10) (1984) 1431; 110(11) (1984) 1613; 110(12) (1984) 1733], and Watanabe [Watanabe, A., 1992. Total
rate and distribution of longshore sand transport. Proceedings of the 23rd Coastal Engineering Conference, ASCE, 2528 2541]
were investigated because they are commonly employed in engineering studies to calculate the time-averaged net sediment
transport rate in the surf zone. The predictive capability of these six formulas was examined by comparison to detailed, high-
quality data on hydrodynamics and sediment transport from Duck, NC, collected during the DUCK85, SUPERDUCK, and
SANDYDUCK field data collection projects. Measured hydrodynamics were employed as much as possible to reduce
uncertainties in the calculations, and all formulas were applied with standard coefficient values without calibration to the data
sets. Overall, the Van Rijn formula was found to yield the most reliable predictions over the range of swell and storm conditions
covered by the field data set. The Engelund Hansen formula worked reasonably well, although with large scatter for the storm
cases, whereas the Bailard Inman formula systematically overestimated the swell cases and underestimated the storm cases. The
formulas by Watanabe and Ackers White produced satisfactory results for most cases, although the former overestimated the
transport rates for swell cases and the latter yielded considerable scatter for storm cases. Finally, the Bijker formula systematically
overestimated the transport rates for all cases. It should be pointed out that the coefficient values in most of the employed
formulas were based primarily on data from the laboratory or from the river environment. Thus, re-calibration of the coefficient
values by reference to field data from the surf zone is expected to improve their predictive capability, although the limited amount
of high-quality field data available at present makes it difficult to obtain values that would be applicable to a wide range of wave
and beach conditions. D 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Longshore sediment transport; Predictive formulas; Field measurements
*
Corresponding author. Fax: +46-46-222-44-35.
E-mail address: magnus.larson@tvrl.lth.se (M. Larson).
0378-3839/01/$ - see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 3 7 8 - 3 8 3 9 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 2 3 - 0
Previous Page
