Kathelijne Wijnberg
Prof. Wijnberg is the chair of Coastal Systems and Nature-based Engineering at University of Twente in the Netherlands. She will discuss her long-standing research on littoral morphology, highlighting how she applies cellular automata for modelling the Dutch shoreline.
Abstract — With acceleration in rate of sea level rise, seaside towns on sandy shores will increasingly be impacted by coastal erosion. While sand nourishment offers a sustainable mitigation strategy, human use of the beach — such as recreational infrastructure on the beach and beach traffic — subtly impact on wind-driven sand dynamics and vegetation growth. On the long-term, these small-scale disturbances can cumulatively affect foredune development, which is critical for natural storm protection.
A Cellular Automata framework will be presented in which we add a human-use layer to a bio-physical Cellular Automata model that simulates the coupled dynamics of aeolian sand transport, vegetation evolution, and marine processes. The bio-physical part of the model captures self-organizing dune behaviour through local interaction rules governing sand movement and plant growth, while integrating episodic storm-driven erosion and fair-weather accretion. The human-use layer incorporates shore nourishment and simulates two-way interactions between recreational activities — including car and foot traffic, as well as infrastructure such as beach huts and pavilions — and the evolving beach-dune topography and vegetation cover.
(Photo by Elroy van Sloten)