• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.594-604
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• 2021

To evaluate the causes of beach erosion in Sinji-Myeongsasimni Beach, external forces, such as tides, tidal currents, and waves, were observed seasonally from March 2019 to March 2020, and the surface sediments were analyzed for this period. In addition, the shoreline positions and beach elevations were regularly surveyed with a VRS GPS and fixed-wing drone. From these field data, the speed of the tidal currents was noted to be insufficient, but the waves were observed to af ect the deformation of the beach. As the beach is open to the southern direction, waves of heights over 1 m were received in the S-SE direction during the spring, summer, and fall seasons. Large waves with heights over 2 m were observed during typhoons in summer and fall. Because of the absence of typhoons for the previous two years from July 2018, the beach area over datum level (DL) as of July 2018 was greater by 30,138m² compared with that of March 2019, and the beach area as of March 2020 decreased by 61,210m² compared with that of March 2019 because of four typhoon attacks after July 2018. The beach volume as of March 2019 decreased by 5.4% compared with that of July 2018 owing to two typhoons, and the beach volume as of September 2019 decreased by 7.3% because of two typhoons during the observation year. However, the volume recovered slightly by about 3% during fall and winter, when there were no high waves. According to the sediment transport vectors by GSTA, the sediments were weakly influxed from small streams located at the center of the beach; the movement vectors were not noticeable at the west beach site, but the westward sediment transport under the water and seaward vectors from the foreshore beach were prominently observed at the east beach site. These patterns of westward sediment vectors could be explained by the angle between the annual mean incident wave direction and beach opening direction. This angle was inclined 24° counterclockwise with the west-east direction. Therefore, the westward wave-induced currents developed strongly during the large-wave seasons. Hence, the sand content is high in the west-side beach but the east-side beach has been eroded seriously, where the pebbles are exposed and sand dune has decreased because of the lack of sand sources except for the soiled dunes. Therefore, it is proposed that efforts for creating new sediment sources, such as beach nourishment and reducing wave heights via submerged breakwaters, be undertaken for the eastside of the beach.