Subaerial Beach Profiles: the Application of Erosion and Accretion Balanced Approach in Southwestern Maine, USA

Abstract

The subaerial zone of the beach is a highly dynamic area that supports recreation and different habitats; as such, it has been the focus of many past studies. Accordingly, this paper reports a study of the assessment of the erosion and accretion over subaerial beach profiles and their relationship to the upper beach width. To this end, the erosion and accretion balanced approach (EABA) which was initially developed for beach profiles in the offshore direction is employed and tested over 934 subaerial beach profiles from the southwestern Maine coastline in New England region of the USA. The results indicated that the calculated average profile over 14 years does represent the equilibrium profile and the model can be used for subaerial beach profiles with high accuracy. Moreover, the results verified the application of the erosion and accretion balanced approach even in natural phenomena such as strong storms and abrupt sea level rises.