Date of Award

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences

First Advisor

Gary A. Zarillo

Second Advisor

Paul J. Cosentino

Third Advisor

Stephen Wood

Fourth Advisor

Deniz Velioglu Sogut

Abstract

Miami Beach, located on the Southeast coast of Florida, is a concerning location for coastal erosion because of the increasing intensity and frequency of tropical storms, nuisance flooding, and accelerated sea-level rise due to climate change. Miami Beach is famous for its beautiful beaches, making it a location of high interest for tourists, citizens, and investors. It is vital for coastal practitioners to accurately model coastal processes, beach evolution, and storm damage during the planning stage of coastal protection projects. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers developed the Beach-fx model as a tool for engineers, planners, and economists to analyze the benefit-to-cost ratio of beach nourishment through probabilistic life-cycle simulations (Gravens and Moser, 2007). This thesis investigates the methodology used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to recommend construction of beach nourishment projects. Hurricanes Matthew and Irma are the two key hurricane events simulated during the period of interest including the 2016 through 2017 hurricane seasons. The one-dimensional cross-shore numerical model, CSHORE (Johnson et al., 2012), is coupled with Beach-fx to provide shoreline evolution data through storm events. The results of this study are focused on three study objectives: calculating the error between the averaged beach profile and the trapezoidal representative profile necessary for Beach-fx model inputs, Beach-fx sensitivity to the depth of closure, and metrics to assess CSHORE and Beach-fx model performance. The combination of Beach-fx with CSHORE can be an appropriate modeling scheme for Miami-Dade County for the purpose of beach nourishment planning.

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