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ABSTRACT
Estimation of Longshore Sediment Transport Rate (LSTR) in the littoral zone is essential for managing and developing any coastal zone. Numerical models are powerful tool to understand and investigate various processes responsible for LSTR in a systematic manner since direct measurement of LSTR is a difficult task. A one dimensional LITDRIFT model was implemented along the Vengurla coast for estimation of LSTR and to analyze the sensitivity of each input parameters towards the computation of LSTR. Major input parameters required for the estimation of LSTR are nearshore wave climate, bathymetry, and sediment characteristics. The nearshore wave data at a depth of 15 m were collected using wave rider buoy in 2015 is used in the present study. Field observations were carried out to survey the regional bathymetry and sediment characteristics. Annual net LSTR along Vengurala coast is relatively less and varies from −7778 to −9015 m3 with an average of −8511 m3. The net direction of LSTR is towards south and gross LSTR is 1.18 × 105 m3/year. The LSTR reveals more sensitivity to coastline orientation and wave direction. A 1° changes in coastline angle and wave direction causes approximately 3000 m3/month difference in LSTR. Moreover, wave height, wave period, and bed roughness has an important role for controlling LSTR. The model results help to identify the role of each parameter contributing towards LSTR estimation and a similar model approach can be applied to other coasts for estimating LSTR in an accurate way.
Acknowledgement
We express our sincere thanks to Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) and Project Director, Integrated Coastal and Marine Area Management (ICMAM), Chennai for carrying out this work. We sincerely thank to all project staffs of ICMAM PD and NIO for helping us for data collection and analysis. The help provided by Mrs. Anoop, Research Scholar NIO during bathymetric data collection is greatly acknowledged. The authors wish to acknowledge their profound sense of gratitude to Dr. Sanitha K Sivadas for her helpful suggestions for improving language of the paper. The authors are very grateful to the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their critical reviews and comments, which helped in improving the paper.