Hi everybody, welcome to our blog!
In about a month from now, we will embark on a hopefully very windy field campaign to study aeolian (wind-blown) sand transport on the beach and the foredune at Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands. We have called our campaign "AEOLEX-II", which is short for Aeolian Experiment and the II, yes, implies that we have performed an aeolian campaign here before (back in 2015). Our aim is to collect data on aeolian sand transport, surface moisture, ground water, wind, and morphology from the low-tide line to the crest of the foredune. During the first AEOLEX campaign we were surprised to see the enormous impact of the 25-m high foredune on aeolian transport dynamics on the beach. During AEOLEX-II we will therefore focus on this effect in particular.
This time, the "we" are four students from the MSc programmes Earth Surface and Water (ESW) and Marine Sciences (MS), and four staff members from the coastal group in the Department of Physical Geography:
The campaign is embedded in Gerben's Vici project "Aeolus meets Poseidon", in which the aim is to develop a model to predict seasonal to annual input of wind-blown sand from the beach to the foredune.
This first blog entry is finalized with a picture taking on Egmond beach in February 2017, when we measured aeolian process dynamics in about 15 m/s winds during storm Doris.
In about a month from now, we will embark on a hopefully very windy field campaign to study aeolian (wind-blown) sand transport on the beach and the foredune at Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands. We have called our campaign "AEOLEX-II", which is short for Aeolian Experiment and the II, yes, implies that we have performed an aeolian campaign here before (back in 2015). Our aim is to collect data on aeolian sand transport, surface moisture, ground water, wind, and morphology from the low-tide line to the crest of the foredune. During the first AEOLEX campaign we were surprised to see the enormous impact of the 25-m high foredune on aeolian transport dynamics on the beach. During AEOLEX-II we will therefore focus on this effect in particular.
This time, the "we" are four students from the MSc programmes Earth Surface and Water (ESW) and Marine Sciences (MS), and four staff members from the coastal group in the Department of Physical Geography:
- Jorn Tuijnman, MSc student from ESW who will study the influence of spatial and temporal variability in soil moisture content on thresholds for aeolian sand transport;
- Job van Beem, MSc student from ESW who will work on the effect of the foredune on wind variability on the beach;
- Jorn Bosma, MSc student from ESW who will explore aeolian transport rates in downwind direction;
- Corinne Böhm, MSc student from MS who aims to quantify how wind and aeolian transport change on the foredune, especially as a function of vegetation;
- Jasper Donker, post-doctoral researcher focussing on wind and aeolian modelling;
- Christian Schwarz, assistant professor with a keen interest in the interaction between sand and vegetation;
- Timothy Price, researcher examining sand exchange between the subtidal zone, the intertidal beach and the foredune;
- Gerben Ruessink, professor of water, wind and sand, or, formally, the morphodynamics of wave-dominated coasts.
The campaign is embedded in Gerben's Vici project "Aeolus meets Poseidon", in which the aim is to develop a model to predict seasonal to annual input of wind-blown sand from the beach to the foredune.
This first blog entry is finalized with a picture taking on Egmond beach in February 2017, when we measured aeolian process dynamics in about 15 m/s winds during storm Doris.