Studies on coastal and desert dunes, and coastal systems : a thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Science of Massey University
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Date
2013
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Massey University
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Abstract
The research achievements of the author, relating to the study of coastal dunes, desert dunes and coastal ecosystems in various coasts and deserts of the world are described. These studies began during a period when the morphodynamics approach was in its infancy, and when the "Australian school" of coastal research was just beginning. In this thesis, the research
achievements of the author, and the publications, are detailed in the Preface. The thesis comprises 80 selected publications in refereed journals and books. The author's curriculum vitae follows in Appendix 1, and a brief career history is provided in Appendix 2. These selected publications extend over a period from 1981 to May, 2013, during a time when the author held 11 positions and visiting fellowships in several countries. Significant achievements include (i) the first wind tunnel and field study of flow around an isolated plant and the formation of shadow dunes, (ii) studies on the initiation and evolution of incipient foredune types, (iii) a ecogeomorphological classification of foredunes and analyses of their internal sedimentary structures, (iv) contributions to the understanding and classification of beach ridges, (v) studies of the flow dynamics in bowl and trough blowouts, (vi) studies on transgressive dunefield and dune sheet initiation, geomorphology and evolution, (vii) surfzone-beach-dune interactions and model; (viii) flow dynamics over foredunes, (xi) furthering our understanding of barchan morphometrics and flow, and (x) climbing dunes forming via the operation ofreversing offshore winds. Discoveries include the following: (i) the relation between shadow dune morphometrics and plant morrhology; (iii) surfzone-beach-dune interactions and a model of these interactions and dunefield evolution; (iii) jet flows and dynamics in trough blowouts, including the nature of topographic flow steering in such blowouts; (iv) the morphometric relationships between trough blowout erosional morphologies and depositional lobe morphologies; (v) linear dunes can migrate laterally, (vi) the relationships between faunal abundance and species richness and nebkha size and plant species type; (vii) the nature of speed-down and speed-up within vegetation up a foredune stoss slope; (vii) jet flow over foredunes; (viii) trailing ridges may be produced from the margins of transverse dunes, (ix) the dunes on Saturn's moon, Titan, may be linear (rather than transverse) due to the 'sticky' nature of the sediments, and (x) the existence and species of phytoplankton in South Australian surfzones.
Description
This Doctor of Science comprises a number of published works, listed in the attached file. As such due to copyright restriction they are not included here but can be accessed individually from the publisher.
Keywords
Sand dunes, Sand dune ecology, Coastal zone management, Coast changes