Causes of the different behaviour of the shoreline on beaches with similar characteristics. Study case of the San Juan and Guardamar del Segura beaches, Spain.

Storms can alter the beach shape, relocating large volumes of sediments and generating drastic changes in the coastline. In the last 60years, beaches shoreline behaviour has been different even though the energy of the waves was similar. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the factors that affect the sandy coasts for better future management. In this research, two beaches, with different erosion rate, located in the southeast of Spain (separated by only 40km of distance) have been studied. The beaches: i) have similar orientations, ii) are open to waves with similar sand lengths of 9.8km and 6.6km, and iii) have similar median sediment size (D50). For its study, shoreline evolution has been analysed from 1956 to 2017. From the results obtained, it can be seen that: i) Between 1992 and 2017, San Juan just lost 3% of its surface, while in the previous period (1956-1990) it was 50%, and ii) Guardamar surface lost in 1992-2017 was 18%, and in the previous period it was 14%. For the analysis of the agents involved in both beaches, cross-shore profiles (volume), marine climate, biocenosis and sedimentology studies were carried out. The results showed that the energy on both beaches was very similar. The biocenosis had not changed and, however, the morphology of Guardamar seabed had increased to 1m deep in some places, which had caused part of the beach berm erosion. Furthermore, important differences were found from the sedimentological study, concluding that the content of calcites and the degree of homogeneity of the particles are the real factors that caused these two beaches to behave differently against erosion.

The effects of sediment used in beach nourishment: Study case El Portet de Moraira beach.

Actions taken to prevent or reduce coastal erosion often do not have the desired effect, leading to major problems instead of solving the original one. This research focuses on why a nourished beach- with borrowed sand and 0.05% of particles <0.063 mm- causes the presence of suspended particles that are observed by beach users as turbidity. This means that the colour of the water was not its characteristic blue, even with calm wave conditions. This research involved a shoreline evolution analysis and a sedimentological study of the sand from 1977 to 2017. The results show that the turbidity episodes that occurred after the beach fill of May 2017 do not coincide with major storms that affected the beach. Furthermore, prior to this beach nourishment, even after the most important storms turbidity was not so pronounced. However, when the pre-nourishment and post-nourishment sediment are compared and analysed in detail, by studying the microstructure and morphology of the sand particles, their composition and morphology were observed to be completely different. These differences are also reflected in the accelerated particle weathering test, with the post-nourishment particles showing greater dissolution of carbonates. From its mineralogy, the post-nourishment material presents a smaller proportion of quartz in its composition and a significant amount of particles (9.6%) formed by clusters of Calcium and Silicon. The separation of this mineralogical composition produced by waves explains the formation of particles measuring <0.063 mm, a fact that has also been confirmed by the accelerated particle weathering test. This is, therefore, the cause of turbidity in the swash zone of the beach.

Oil spills and their impacts on sand beach invertebrate communities: A literature review.

Sand beaches are highly dynamic habitats that can experience considerable impacts from oil spills. This review provides a synthesis of the scientific literature on major oil spills and their impacts on sand beaches, with emphasis on studies documenting effects and recoveries of intertidal invertebrate communities. One of the key observations arising from this review is that more attention has generally been given to studying the impacts of oil spills on invertebrates (mostly macrobenthos), and not to documenting their biological recovery. Biological recovery of sand beach invertebrates is highly dynamic, depending on several factors including site-specific physical properties and processes (e.g., sand grain size, beach exposure), the degree of oiling, depth of oil burial, and biological factors (e.g., species-specific life-history traits). Recovery of affected communities ranges from several weeks to several years, with longer recoveries generally associated with physical factors that facilitate oil persistence, or when cleanup activities are absent on heavily oiled beaches. There are considerable challenges in quantifying impacts from spills on sand beach invertebrates because of insufficient baseline information (e.g., distribution, abundance and composition), knowledge gaps in their natural variability (spatial and temporal), and inadequate sampling and replication during and after oil spills. Thus, environment assessments of impacts and recovery require a rigorous experimental design that controls for confounding sources of variability. General recommendations on sampling strategies and toxicity testing, and a preliminary framework for incorporating species-specific life history traits into future assessments are also provided.

Macrofauna bentónica de las playas de arena del Área de Conservación Osa, Puntarenas, Pacífico Sur de Costa Rica / Benthic macrofauna found in Sandy beaches from Osa Conservation Area, Puntarenas, Southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica

Resumen Se describe la diversidad y composición de especies las playas de arena del Pacífico Sur de Costa Rica. En las playas de arena de la región, se colectó individuos de la infauna por medio de barrenos. Para la zona de entre mareas arenosa el número de especies estrictamente marina varió de 5 a 13 taxones, número que es intermedio con los reportados previamente para estos ambientes en Costa Rica. En la zonas de arena, el supralitoral lo dominó el isópodo Cirolana salvadorensis, mientras nereidos y un gusano de la Familia Pisionidae dominaron en el infralitoral. Otros organismos encontrados en las playas fueron cangrejos del género Uca, cangrejos anomuros (Emerita), galletas de mar (Mellita longifissa) y varios grupos de poliquetos tubícolas permanentes o temporales de la familias Onuphidae, Spionidae, Magelonidae y Glyceridae. Las playas mostraron variación en su fauna atribuible en ciertos casos a la exposición al oleaje, teniendo menos fauna en las playas más reflectivas. Se mencionan acitivades humanas que pueden explicar la baja riqueza de especies encontrada en algunas de las playas analizadas.

Abstract The diversity and species composition of the intertidal sandy beaches in the southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica were studied by means of cores collected along perpendicular transects to the beaches. The numbers of strictly marine species varied between 5 to 13 taxa, representing an intermediate value compared to those previously reported for these environments in Costa Rica. The isopod Cirolana salvadorensis was the dominant species in the supralittoral zone, whereas polychaete worms belonging to the families Nereididae and Pisionidae dominated the low intertidal zone. Others organisms collected in the beaches were the crabs of the genus Uca, anomurans crabs (Emerita), sand dollars (Mellita longifissa) and several taxa of polychaete tubeworms, such as the Onuphidae, Spionidae, Magelonidae, and Glyceridae. The high faunal difference among the sites is possibly explained by their exposure to the wave energy, with fewer individuals in the more reflective beaches. In addition, human activities might also be responsible for the low infaunal diversity found in some of these beaches. This is the first effort to describe the benthonic fauna of beaches from this area. Rev. Biol. Trop. 63 (Suppl. 1): 273-285. Epub 2015 April 01.

BIOB: a mathematical model for the biodegradation of low solubility hydrocarbons.

Modeling oil biodegradation is an important step in predicting the long term fate of oil on beaches. Unfortunately, existing models do not account mechanistically for environmental factors, such as pore water nutrient concentration, affecting oil biodegradation, rather in an empirical way. We present herein a numerical model, BIOB, to simulate the biodegradation of insoluble attached hydrocarbon. The model was used to simulate an experimental oil spill on a sand beach. The biodegradation kinetic parameters were estimated by fitting the model to the experimental data of alkanes and aromatics. It was found that parameter values are comparable to their counterparts for the biodegradation of dissolved organic matter. The biodegradation of aromatics was highly affected by the decay of aromatic biomass, probably due to its low growth rate. Numerical simulations revealed that the biodegradation rate increases by 3-4 folds when the nutrient concentration is increased from 0.2 to 2.0 mg N/L.