Relationship between wave energy and coastal morphology in the central Algarve rocky coast (Galé to Olhos de Água)

摘要

The coastal zones’ geomorphological evolution is the result of subaereal weathering andmarine abrasion. To quantify the role of the waves’ action as a geomorphic process particularlyon shore platforms sculpture is the main goal of the current work. For that purpose, a numericalmodeling for wave propagation (STWAVE) was used to determine differences on breakingwave characteristics along the study area. This program was used inside an operational toolbox(SMS 9.2) that allows data pre-processing from a GIS software (ArcGIS 9.2). The MATLABR2007a software was used to obtain significant wave heights and wave energy at the breakingposition along the study area, for each tested condition. The different coastal morphologies andmass movements were identified on the field and compared with the described evolution inliterature (Marques, 1997). Since the study area presents strong longshore variation inexposition to the waves and different wave energies, several sections were defined. It was thenpossible to analyze the frequency of occurrence of a given coastal morphology and the frequency of mass movements for each section and compare with longshore variations on waveenergy for both average and storm conditions.