Unpacking storm damages on a developed shoreline: Relating dune erosion and urban runoff

Shore & Beach ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 35-45
Author(s):  
Patrick Barrineau ◽  
Timothy Kana

Hurricane Matthew (2016) caused significant beach and dune erosion from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, USA, to Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA. At Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the storm caused beach recession, and much of the southern half of the city’s beaches appeared to be overwashed in post-storm surveys. Around half of the city’s beaches appeared overwashed following the storm; however, the Storm Impact Scale (SIS; Sallenger 2000) applied to a pre-storm elevation model suggests less than 10% of the city’s beaches should have experienced overwash. Spatial analysis of elevation and land cover data reveals dunes that were “overwashed” during Matthew drain from watersheds that are >35% impervious, where those showing only dune recession are <5% impervious. The densely developed downtown of Myrtle Beach sits on a low seaward-sloping terrace. Additionally, indurated strata beneath the downtown area can prevent groundwater from draining during excessive rain events. As a result, the most continuous impervious surface cover and near-surface strata lie within a half-kilometer of the beach and drain directly to the backshore. Along the U.S. Southeast coast, this is somewhat rare; many coastal systems feature a lagoon or low-lying bottomland along their landward border, which facilitates drainage of upland impervious surfaces following storm passage. At Myrtle Beach, all of the stormwater runoff is drained directly to the beach through a series of outfall pipes. Many of the outfall pipes are located along the backshore, near the elevation of storm surge during Matthew. Runoff from Matthew’s heavy rains was observed causing ponding on the landward side of the foredune and scouring around beach access walkways. Based on these observations, the severe dune erosion experienced near downtown Myrtle Beach during Hurricane Matthew may have been caused by runoff and/or groundwater flux rather than overwash. These results highlight an unexpected relationship between upland conditions and dune erosion on a developed shoreline. That is, dune erosion can be caused by mechanisms beside overwash during storm events.

Author(s):  
Linus Schmitz ◽  
Guido Schnabel

Since first observed in 2003, peach skin streaking (PSS) has increasingly affected fruit production in the Southeast. Since 2017 we have documented the occurrence of peach skin streaking on 21 cultivars in South Carolina and symptoms have also been reported in Maryland and Pennsylvania. PSS seems to be linked to an unidentified causal agent mediated in rainwater with susceptibility closely related to the ripening status of maturing fruit. Over the course of the 2019 peach growing season, we collected rainwater at a South Carolina peach farm with a history of PSS and analyzed samples for chemical and physical property. Five cultivars were monitored for occurrence of PSS to associate specific rain events with symptom development in the field. PSS was observed in the field on one of the monitored and three additional cultivars between May and June, and five rain events coincided in time with symptom development. However, chemical, and physical properties from these rainwater samples were not significantly different from samples not associated with PSS in that time frame. Fruit of the five cultivars were also collected at 21, 14, 7 and 0 days before harvest, to determine light absorbance parameters, ΔA and color space, and to induce symptoms under laboratory conditions by treatment with ClO2. There were significant correlations between symptom development and light absorbance parameters illustrating how proneness to PSS increases during fruit maturation.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 963
Author(s):  
E. Kokinou ◽  
C. Belonaki ◽  
D. Sakadakis ◽  
K. Sakadaki

Main scope of the present study is to combine topographic and geological data, magnetic susceptibility and thermomagnetic analysis in order to investigate the magnetic properties of the near surface soils in possible polluted urban areas. For this purpose, a power plant with a dense traffic net around it, located in the NW section of Heraklion city in Crete was selected to be the study area. Surface soil samples have been collected from the area under investigation and they were analyzed in order to estimate the spatial distribution of the magnetic susceptibility. Loci of high values of the magnetic susceptibility within the study area gave rise to further proceed to thermomagnetic analysis of the selected samples. GIS techniques were used for mapping the magnetic measurements on the various topographic and geological features of the area. The digital elevation model was created by the digitization of the topographic map contours (1:5000 scale maps). The combination of the above techniques indicate high values of the magnetic susceptibility especially in the northeastern part of the investigated area, possibly related to pollution due to the presence of heavy metals.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eve daly ◽  
David O Leary

&lt;p&gt;Peatlands are becoming recognized as important carbon sequestration centres. Through restoration projects of peatlands in which the water table is raised, they may become carbon neutral or possibly carbon negative. Restoration projects require a knowledge of intra-peat variation across potentially large spatial areas. This is often difficult with traditional in-situ point measurements. The integration of multidimensional geophysical datasets and digital elevation models, combined with modern data analytical techniques, may provide a rapid means of accessing intra-peat variation. In this study, an airborne radiometric survey, being flown nationally over the Republic of Ireland, combined with a digital elevation model, is used to delineate areas within an industrial peatland where peat thickness is less than 1m. Radiometric data are particularly suited to peat studies as they are sensitive to water content and peat thickness and require relatively little expert knowledge to utilise. Peat, as a mostly organic material, acts as a low signal environment where variations in the signal are linked to intra-peat variation of thickness, density and/or water content. This study uses an unsupervised machine learning, self-organizing map clustering methodology to group the study site into three zones interpreted as 1) the edge of the bog where peat layer is thinning or there is influence on the radiometric signal from non-peat soils outside of the bog, 2) the normal peat conditions where thickness and saturation appear as a relative constant in the radiometric response, and 3) areas where the peat is either thinner or drier. A ground geophysical survey was conducted to verify this interpretation. The delineation of such spatial variations in the radiometric response could aid any restoration project in the initial stages or act as a baseline study to monitor changes to the peatland during and after a restoration project is complete. Future work will see this methodology extended to other peatland types such as blanket bogs and natural raised bogs, as well as the integration of concurrent airborne electromagnetic data to link the near-surface radiometric response to the deeper vadose zone and define a more comprehensive classification scheme for these peatland sites.&lt;/p&gt;


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1723 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas M. Pastore ◽  
Richard N. Peterson ◽  
Diane B. Fribance ◽  
Richard Viso ◽  
Erin E. Hackett

Beach erosion and water quality degradation have been observed in Singleton Swash, a tidal creek that traverses the beach-face connecting land and ocean in Myrtle Beach, SC. The objective of this study in Singleton Swash is to explore relationships between water quality and hydrodynamics, where the latter are influenced by beach face morphology. We measure water velocities, water levels, and dissolved oxygen concentrations (DO) (a proxy for water quality) and apply correlation analysis to examine the relationships between physical processes and dissolved oxygen variations. Results show that larger tidal ranges are associated with higher mean levels of DO in the tidal creek. The larger tidal ranges are linked to larger magnitude currents, which increase both the DO transport via larger fluxes of oxygenated oceanic water into the swash and the magnitude of Reynolds shear stresses; due to tidal asymmetries, flood currents are stronger than ebb currents in this system. Based on these results, it is concluded that the combined transport of oxygenated waters into the tidal creek from the ocean on large flood tides and subsequent mixing due to large Reynolds shear stresses result in the observed net DO concentration increases in the creek over tidal cycles.


2006 ◽  
Vol 96 (5) ◽  
pp. 1897-1914 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Andrus ◽  
C. D. Fairbanks ◽  
J. Zhang ◽  
W. M. Camp ◽  
T. J. Casey ◽  
...  

1982 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. McCartan ◽  
J. P. Owens ◽  
B. W. Blackwelder ◽  
B. J. Szabo ◽  
D. F. Belknap ◽  
...  

AbstractThe results of an integrated study comprising litho- and biostratigraphic investigations, uranium-series coral dating, amino acid racemization in molluscs, and paleomagnetic measurements are compared to ascertain relative and absolute ages of Pleistocene deposits of the Atlantic Coastal Plain in North and South Carolina. Four depositional events are inferred for South Carolina and two for North Carolina by all methods. The data suggest that there are four Pleistocene units containing corals that have been dated at about 100,000 yr, 200,000 yr, 450,000 yr, and over 1,000,000 yr. Some conflicts exist between the different methods regarding the correlation of the younger of these depositional events between Charleston and Myrtle Beach. Lack of good uranium-series dates for the younger material at Myrtle Beach makes the correlation with the deposits at Charleston more difficult.


1985 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denis M. Strachan ◽  
L. R. Pederson ◽  
R. O. Lokken

During the various processing activities in the production of plutonium for the U.S. national defense programs, waste by-products were generated. These wastes, which have been generated over about the past 40 years at sites such as Savannah River Plant in South Carolina and Hanford in Washington, have been stored in underground tanks. Plans for the final disposal of the Savannah River Plan waste have now been documented [1] and call for the decontaminated soluble fraction of the waste to be mixed with cementitious materials and disposed of in near-surface trenches [2]. The radionuclide fraction of the soluble waste and the insoluble fraction of the waste will be converted to glass and sent to a geologic repository. In order for the repository to accept the glass, certain performance criteria must be met. Although not fully defined, it is certain that these criteria will include some specification on the rate of release of nuclides from the glass waste form when contacted by water.


Spine ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (14) ◽  
pp. i
Author(s):  
Al Geissele
Keyword(s):  

2006 ◽  
Vol 70 (2-4) ◽  
pp. 181-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen Gawarkiewicz ◽  
Christopher A. Linder

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