The Nearshore Sediment Transport Study

Abstract

A six‐year program, with a budget of $6 million, was undertaken by the Office of Sea Grant in 1976 to develop improved engineering predictive models for transport of sediment in and near the surf zone by waves and currents. The project, called the Nearshore Sediment Transport Study, has involved ten investigators from six different institutions who worked cooperatively on field studies. Three major field experiments have been conducted, the first in 1978, the second in 1980, and the last in 1981. The first two field experiments had a duration of approximately a month and involved synoptic measurements of more than 100 parameters of surf zone dynamics and sediment response. Sand tracer experiments were also performed and the last two field sites include concurrent trap experiments for longshore transport. All data were recorded on magnetic tape and more than a billion words were obtained in the second experiment. In the final two years of the project, emphasis has been placed on the formulation of predictive models and their verification using the NSTS data sets.