Assessment of tidal inlet evolution and stability using sediment budget computations and hydraulic parameter analysis

Research into the response of coastlines to the opening and stabilisation of inlets has been limited by the availability of suitable data, the shortcomings of existing formulae when applied to different inlets, and the difficulties particular to multi-inlet situations. Our appraisal of methodologies for studying inlet dynamics leads us to formulate a new approach for investigating inlet evolution and stability based on combining sediment budget computations (using best estimates and uncertainty analysis) and inlet hydraulic parameter analysis.The approach developed is applied to a stabilised inlet, located within a multi-inlet system (Faro-Olhão Inlet, Ria Formosa, Southern Portugal), which was opened starting 1929 and has since been dredged periodically to maintain navigability. A series of digital maps was produced based on multi-year data acquired from charts, surveys, and aerial photos. The maps were used to compute sediment volumes for six coastal cells delineated on the basis of the morphological features of the inlet. Cell volumes and fluxes were calculated for three periods (1929–1962, 1962–1978, and 1978–2001), and overall sediment budgets were calculated for the latter two periods. Inlet hydraulic parameters measured included tidal prism, inlet channel cross-sectional area and hydraulic radius, and maximum depth of the inlet throat, and were tracked over 9 bathymetric surveys from 1947–2004. The computed budget reveals that the inlet is only at present reaching volumetric equilibrium. However, the analysis of channel cross-sectional area and radius indicates parameter stability around 1978–1985, 20–25 years before the inlet started to reach volumetric equilibrium. It is hypothesised that the observed stability in parameters for the inlet post-1978 is related to the presence of fixed jetties and to a stratigraphic control that prevents further deepening, and not to the achievement of a dynamic equilibrium.The findings indicate that the coupling of sediment budget computation and inlet parameter analysis is useful for understanding historical sediment pathways and magnitudes, and for analysing the evolution of an inlet towards equilibrium. Although the analysis of inlet parameter evolution is valuable for examining the locational/geometrical stability of an inlet, it needs to be used in conjunction with sediment budget computations in order to properly infer inlet equilibrium. Moreover, existing formulae used to infer inlet stability, which relate cross-sectional area to tidal prism, should be reviewed with a view to including other external variables (e.g., stratigraphic controls) and to making their application more flexible to cope with the range of different inlet conditions. For multi-inlet systems, the coupling of morphology and hydrodynamics analysis should be extended to all inlets in order to infer the stability of the overall system based on the distribution of the tidal prism through time and the patterns of inlet circulation and sediment transport.