Barrier Island Morphology
Oral
Ke Liu
California Institute of Technology
Qin Chen, PhD
Professor
Northeastern University
Kelin Hu, PhD
Research Scientist
The Water Institute of the Gulf
Hurricanes are recognized as a strong forcing in changing coastal morphology by redistributing sediments. Barrier islands protect estuaries from storm surge and severe waves and confine water and sediment discharge into estuaries during a hurricane event. In this study, we present a three-dimensional, fully coupled storm surge, waves, and sediment transport model for the Louisiana coast, and the impact of barrier islands degradation on hurricane hydrodynamics and sediment dynamics was studied using a hypothetical model configuration for four major barrier islands in Terrebonne Bay and Barataria Bay.