Kachemak Bay Reserve, Alaska

Coastal Erosion and Sediment Transport (proposed for 2003-2006)

In February 2003, a remote video monitoring station (Argus Beach Monitoring System, ABMS - http://www.planetargus.com) was installed west of the Homer Spit in the city of Homer. This project is part of a collaborative research effort between the City of Homer, the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve and Drs. Guy Gelfenbaum and Peter Ruggiero with the U.S. Geological Survey. The goal of this study is to understand the large-scale sediment dynamics of the Kenai Peninsula coastline for the purpose of improving coastal management decisions. Assessing coastal erosion and the loss of nearshore habitat are the two primary objectives for studying the coastal processes along the Kenai Peninsula.

Coastal Erosion: This study will provide an understanding of the interactions among wave energy, seacliff response and sediment transport in the Kachemak Bay Research Reserve. We will monitor shoreline and morphology changes frequently enough to observe episodic changes before and after extreme tides and high waves, and long enough to determine statistical trends in sediment movement (see http://zuma.nwra.com/homer/).

Nearshore Habitat: This study will improve our understanding of the effects of sand movement on local ecological processes. The sand volume appears to have recently decreased in the nearshore, but the deeper water benthos still has considerable sediment. In fact a kelp bed was destroyed recently following a massive movement of sand during a winter storm. The kelp bed habitat was found to be buried by over 0.5 m of sand during the summer of 2001. The kelp beds provide habitat for many other organisms and are important to the nearshore ecosystem. Integrating the shoreline and morphology observations with information on waves, tides, currents and the size and health of kelp beds will improve our understanding of the relationships in this complex system.