What is it about?
The width of our beaches is determined by how much sand arrives and stays on the beach. While beach width changes during the year are due to seasonal changes in waves, in the long term the width is a result of the sand supply and its distribution along the coast. As climate change may affect the waves, the main driver generating the currents that redistribute sand, we analyzed the changes that global warming may create in the waves and thus the sediment transport in Yucatan.
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Why is it important?
Knowing if global warming will alter sand redistribution patterns will allow us to start planning our developments along the coast. This will help mitigate possible future disasters and thus reduce the costs of dealing with extreme events.
Perspectives
Usually, climate change studies conclude that change will occur. This was not our case, where we find very little difference in sand transport between the present and the future. These results have a lot of uncertainty as only one future model was used. Nevertheless, the results show that even if there are no future changes, we need to implement mitigation measures since coastal development in Yucatan is not considering the present sand redistribution patterns.
Christian Appendini
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: SEDIMENT TRANSPORT AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN NORTHERN YUCATAN, May 2019, World Scientific Pub Co Pte Lt,
DOI: 10.1142/9789811204487_0237.
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