Pre-Specified Offshore Contours in GENESIS

In the absence of any obstructing element along the coast, man-made or natural, the
shoreline planform in GENESIS (or any other one-line model) will gradually evolve
towards a straight line if the simulation lasts long enough. The reason for this is the
sequence of calculations performed in GENESIS (Fig. 1):

The shape of the shoreline is given at the beginning of the calculation, but will
thereafter be determined as a result of calculated shoreline change.

GENESIS assigns an offshore bathymetry from depth contours that are either a
direct replica of the shoreline or calculated as a smoothed version of the
shoreline (depending on the value of the input parameter ISMOOTH).

At wave breaking, the alongshore shape of the breaker line will, to a large
extent, resemble a smoothed version of the shoreline.

Calculated longshore sediment transport rates are dependent on the angle

between the breaking waves and the shoreline.

The calculated shoreline change will therefore have a tendency to smooth out
the difference between the orientation of the breaker line and shoreline,
respectively.

The new shoreline will be a bit smoother that it was during the previous time
step.

Thus, the breaker line orientation tends to be a smoothed version of the shoreline
and the updated shoreline orientation tends to be a smoothed version of the breaker
line. As a consequence, this system consistently strives towards a straight shoreline.

At the same time, real beaches often display considerable and persistent curvature.
One reason for this is a variable geology/sedimentology that causes some parts of the
coast to be persistent against erosion whereas other part may be very easily erodible.
Another explanation is the presence of offshore features that result in alongshore
variation in wave parameters. By using 2D wave model such as STWAVE (Smith et
al. 2001) to calculate the wave transformation, it is sometimes possible to obtain such
a consistent alongshore variation in breaking wave parameters that the stable beach
planform will be curved. Generally, however, with a more significant planform
curvature, the use of such a 2D model is not enough.

Thus, in order to obtain the capability to represent non-plain equilibrium

planforms in GENESIS, an option was introduced to pre-specify regional, stationary
offshore features over which the waves are transformed in the internal GENESIS
wave module. The introduction of a pre-specified contour would break the previous
sequence of calculations where the shoreline gradually evolves towards a straight line.
The shape of this contour would then determine the long-term equilibrium planform
in the absence of coastal structures.
 The pre-specified contour should, in general, represent the persistent, regional
shape of the modeled coastline. As far as possible, the contour should not reflect the
influence of any structures or other features that are taken into account in the
GENESIS simulation, or these features would be considered twice on the model set-
up. Thus, for instance, for a coastal stretch with an inlet, it would be preferable to use
any shoreline prior to the opening of the inlet, if possible, as a basis for obtaining the
pre-specified contour. The pre-specified contour is supposed to reflect the impact of
features and processes that are otherwise not represented in the GENESIS
simulations.

Once the influence of structures and other features are removed from available
shorelines they may be used to calculate the form of the pre-specified contour. Either
one such shoreline or the average of several shorelines may be used. The contour may
then be calculated, for example, as a moving average of the shoreline, where the size
of the smoothing window needs to be big enough to eliminate any smaller-scale
coastal irregularities (Figs. 3 and 4). A typical size of the smoothing window could be
in the order of 500 to 1000 m (1,500 to 3,000 ft).

In conclusion the pre-specified contour should:

Reflect regional, stable features in the shoreline planform.

Represent the impact of features and processes that are otherwise not
represented in the GENESIS simulations.

Correspond to the long-term equilibrium shoreline planform without the

influence of any structures or other features that will be included in the
GENESIS model.

REFERENCES
Smith, J.M., Sherlock, A.R., and Resio, D.T. 2001. STWAVE: Steady-State Spectral
Wave Model, Users Manual for STWAVE, Version 3, Report ERDC/CHL SR-01-1,
Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and
Development Center, Vicksburg, MS.
 Figure 1. Sequence of calculations in GENESIS

Figure 2. Breaking the sequence of calculations by introducing

a stationary offshore contour.
 13600

13200
D is t a n c e F r o m B a s e lin e ( m )

12800

12400

M e a s u r e d S h o r e lin e
R e g io n a l T r e n d
12000

11600
36000 40000 44000 48000
D is t a n c e A lo n g s h o r e ( m )

Figure 3. Sample illustration of measured shoreline and the associated regional trend.

D is t a n c e F r o m B a s e lin e ( m )
13600
12800
12000
36000 40000 44000 48000
D is t a n c e A lo n g s h o r e ( m )

Figure 4. Same as Figure 3, but with no distortion (horizontal scale = vertical scale).