Climate Change Impacts on the Stability of Small Tidal Inlets

This study was undertaken to develop methods and tools that can provide insights on potential climate change (CC) impacts on small tidal inlets (STI). Two process based snap-shot modeling approaches for data poor and data rich environments are used to assess CC impacts and an innovative reduced complexity model is developed to obtain rapid predictions of CC impacts on the STI's stability. Results show that STIs are unlikely to change their types, but that their stability level is likely to change under CC impacts. The main driver for the change is the future variations in wave directions, not SLR as is commonly thought.