Abstract
Shoreline evolution over the last two centuries was analysed for Dundrum Bay, Co. Down, Northern Ireland, using historical and recent shoreline datasets from 1833 to 2020. The area of interest comprises two sandy beaches and vegetated coastal dune fields, Newcastle–Murlough and Ballykinler, separated by an inlet channel which connects the inner with the outer bay. Twenty‐four temporal shorelines were extracted, and a quantitative assessment of their positional uncertainty was performed. This was combined with analysis of foredune volume variations by applying the Structure‐from‐Motion‐Multi‐View‐Stereo technique to 1963 aerial photography and comparing it with a 2014 Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) dataset to better inform on links between the sediment dynamics and the observed shoreline changes. Storm events were identified using recorded extreme water levels (EWLs) (1901–2020) and hindcasted wave data (1948–2020). In the first 87 years, the shoreline was largely stable, and change was focused at the inlet area. In the 20th century, localised retreat characterised the western (Newcastle–Murlough) sector, whereas the eastern sector (Ballykinler) experienced general shoreline advance. The rate and extent of shoreline retreat in the western sector increased post‐1997 in concert with accelerated accretion at Ballykinler. The strongest erosional episodes were recorded in 1920–1951, 1997–2005, and 2012–2014. Although no direct link was established between single storms and shoreline retreat rates, the three major retreat periods coincided with several consecutive EWLs or EWLs with a return period greater than 100 years. These were generated by storm directions ranging from south to southwest. The long‐term pattern of shoreline change points to a complex coastal system that is still evolving.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2500-2520 |
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Earth Surface Processes and Landforms |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue number | 13 |
| Early online date | 1 Jun 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published online - 1 Jun 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work is part of the MarPAMM project (Marine Protected Area Management and Monitoring). The project is supported by the European Union's INTERREG VA Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB). The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the National Trust for their help to access the field site and for providing the 2014 LiDAR dataset. We thank the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland for supplying useful data through the Northern Ireland Mapping Agreements (NIMA) agreement. We are also thankful to the Environmental Hydraulics Institute of University of Cantabria (IHCantabria, Spain) and Ifremer (France) for providing the hindcast wave datasets, to the Weather Buoy Network of the Marine Institute of Ireland for the recorded wave parameters used for validation, and to the British Oceanographic Data Centre for providing the recorded water levels from the Bangor tide gauge. Finally, we want to thank Prof. Julian Orford and Dr. Joanne Murdy for providing the reports of the recorded water levels from the Belfast tide gauge.
Funding Information:
This work is part of the MarPAMM project (Marine Protected Area Management and Monitoring). The project is supported by the European Union's INTERREG VA Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB). The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the National Trust for their help to access the field site and for providing the 2014 LiDAR dataset. We thank the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland for supplying useful data through the Northern Ireland Mapping Agreements (NIMA) agreement. We are also thankful to the Environmental Hydraulics Institute of University of Cantabria (IHCantabria, Spain) and Ifremer (France) for providing the hindcast wave datasets, to the Weather Buoy Network of the Marine Institute of Ireland for the recorded wave parameters used for validation, and to the British Oceanographic Data Centre for providing the recorded water levels from the Bangor tide gauge. Finally, we want to thank Prof. Julian Orford and Dr. Joanne Murdy for providing the reports of the recorded water levels from the Belfast tide gauge.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Keywords
- historical storms
- long‐term coastline dynamics
- DSAS
- tidal inlet
- dune volume change
- historical maps
- long-term coastline dynamics
