In this project we combine our ability to map the bottom topography of shallow seas from SAR imagery, built up in earlier projects,with morphological models in order to study sediment transport in morphologically very dynamic areas. The projects consists of three parts: firstly,a dedicated field experiment provides detailed measurements of the behaviour of short waves,which are out of equilibrium due to interaction with varying currents. In previous research projects lack of such data was identified as the main obstruction for improving our models to interpret radar backscatter signals.In the second part of the project improved models for wave-current interaction and radar backscatter, resulting from an analysis of the experimental data,are integrated in our existing methods to map bottom topographies.
These improved methods are applied to generate dense time series of depth maps of selected, morphologically dynamic sites.In the third part these depth time series are used to adjust sediment transport models.The results are evaluated to determine how this procedure can increase our knowledge of the morphological processes in these dynamic sites, and what its potential is for monitoring and predicting morphological changes local authorities managing coastal zones.
