the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 19 Nov 2024
Impacts of Barrier-Island Breaching on Mainland Flooding During Storm Events applied to Moriches, NY
Abstract. Barrier islands can protect the mainland from flooding during storms through reduction of storm surge and dissipation of storm generated wave energy. However, the protective capability is reduced when barrier islands breach and a direct hydrodynamic connection between the water bodies on both sides of the barrier island is established. Breaching of barrier islands during large storm events is complicated, involving nonlinear processes that connect water, sediment transport, dune height, and island width among other factors. In order to assess how barrier island breaching impacts flooding on the mainland, we used a statistical approach to analyze the sensitivity of mainland storm-surge to barrier island breaching by randomizing the location, time, and extent of a breach event. We created a framework that allows breaching to develop during the course of a simulation and imposes a breach in an approximation of a Gaussian bell-curve that deepens over time. We show that simulating a storm event and varying the size, location, and number of breaches in the barrier island that mainland storm surge and horizontal inundation is affected by breaching; total inundation has a logarithmic relationship with total breach area which tapers off after the entire island is removed. Breach location is also an important predictor of inundation and bay surge. The insights we've gleaned from this study can help prepare shoreline communities for the differing ways that breaching affects the mainland coastline. Understanding which mainland locations are vulnerable to breaching, planners and coastal engineers can design interventions to reduce the likelihood of a breach occurring in areas adjacent to high flood risk.
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Notice on discussion status
The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.
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Preprint
(5311 KB)
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The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.
- Preprint
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- BibTeX
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- Final revised paper
Journal article(s) based on this preprint
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Dec 2024
Review of “Impacts of Barrier-Island Breaching on Mainland Flooding During Storm Events applied to Moriches, NY” written by Catherine R. Jeffries, Robert Weiss, Jennifer L. Irish, and Kyle Mandli and submitted to Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences.
This paper describes the modelled breaching behavior of a 1938 Hurricane that made landfall in Moriche Bay, New York, USA, to gain a better appreciation of how hurricanes can initiate and generate breaches in barrier islands for future coastal community protection in these areas. This paper is a timely and important contribution to the literature examining the impacts of hurricanes on these environments with significant implications for the communities and infrastructure developed in these regions. The technique applied is sound and can be translated to other geomophologically-similar sites around the world to improve coastal hazard management and adaptation. As such, the paper would be of interest to a wide audience.
The paper is generally well written (but see minor comments below). The introduction, methods and results are clear and conclusive (but see minor comments below). However, the paper is not acceptable in its current form based on the Discussion.
The Discussion is a very well written interpretation of the results, but lacks any connectivity to other research. It is unbelievable that not a single reference is cited in the Discussion! I urge the authors to compare their results and interpretations with the work of others who have conducted similar analyses in coastal barrier island systems. The authors could also compare their findings with the findings from other sandy coastal systems, and from other types of coastal hazards.
In addition, it would be very useful to practitioners, industry, policy-makers, decision-makers and the local community if the authors could extrapolate their findings to articulate what the impacts on the community and infrastructure would be if a repeat of this storm occurred today.
Minor comments:
L12: Please rephrase “we’ve”
L50: space between ‘),’ and ‘these’
Throughout: Referencing not in correct format, e.g. L51 “by (Visser” – this is likely a software issue, but please correct.
L80: What is the difference between Moriches and Moriches Bay? Could these be labelled in Figure 1?
L81: What is the population?
L81: Please provide some details on this damage
Figure 1: Is this a LiDAR image? What is the vertical scale? The storm track in the inset could be more pronounced. Could you please label the features ie. the Moriches Bay and the various islands, in the main image. What is that weird cross hatching in the barrier island between b and c?
L91-92: What is the evidence for this? How quickly did they close after the Hurricane? Please explain how significant these breaches were for flooding? Please show where these breaches occurred on Figure 1.
L100: In what case? Recommend deleting
L102: Please spell out “ADCIRC” and use acronym in future.
Figure 5: Hanging sentence “(west” – Should there be something following this?
Overall, I believe the above changes are easily addressed by the authors and I look forward to seeing the next iteration of this manuscript.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2929-RC1 -
AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Catherine Jeffries, 05 Jan 2025
Thank you for taking the time to review this paper and offer suggestions for improving the quality of the research and writing. We have worked our way through the reviewer comments and addressed them in the attached file. Please see the Author remarks at the top of the document for the key to how the replies are structured.
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AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Catherine Jeffries, 05 Jan 2025
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Adam Switzer, 05 Dec 2024
General comments
The study presents convincing evidence and modelling for breaching of a barrier island during a hurricanes on the US East coast that impact inundation mainland. They demonstrate that the number, location, and size of the breaches can significantly change the inundation potential for the coastline.
The authors create a framework that allows breaching to develop during a simulation and imposes a breach in an approximation of a Gaussian bell-curve that deepens over time. They then simulate storm events by varying the size, location, and number of breaches in the barrier island and examining the storm surge and inundation is affected by breaching; total inundation has a logarithmic relationship with total breach area which tapers off after the entire island is removed. Breach location is also an important predictor of inundation and bay surge.
The work is important as understanding vulnerable areas and examining how breaching impacts barriers can provide opportunities for shoring up infrastructure (or perhaps the authors could add a stronger suggestion of not building or rebuilding in these locations). The work will also allow planning that minimizes hurricane disruption to coastal communities.
Specific Comments
Lines 30-33 Awkward sentence
Line 40 and 44 Check referencing format
Line 46 at and at in same sentence
Line 53 just geological mapping no need for the ‘a’
Line 83 change especially to a real word like particularly
Line 88 add more details maximum winds
Line 159 should be computation time
Line 282 awkward sentence
Figures
I suggest you unify fonts and scales. The size of the text in figs 8,9 and 10 also seems a little odd. The lat longs are in larger font size then the scale and features. You may also want to annotated the figures to highlights the key features you want the reader to be drawn to.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2929-RC2 -
AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Catherine Jeffries, 05 Jan 2025
Thank you for taking the time to review this paper and offer suggestions for improving the quality of the research and writing. We have worked our way through the reviewer comments and addressed them in the attached file. Please see the Author remarks at the top of the document for the key to how the replies are structured.
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AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Catherine Jeffries, 05 Jan 2025
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AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Catherine Jeffries, 05 Jan 2025
Thank you for taking the time to review this paper and offer suggestions for improving the quality of the research and writing. We have worked our way through the reviewer comments and addressed them in the attached file. Please see the Author remarks at the top of the document for the key to how the replies are structured.
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Dec 2024
Review of “Impacts of Barrier-Island Breaching on Mainland Flooding During Storm Events applied to Moriches, NY” written by Catherine R. Jeffries, Robert Weiss, Jennifer L. Irish, and Kyle Mandli and submitted to Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences.
This paper describes the modelled breaching behavior of a 1938 Hurricane that made landfall in Moriche Bay, New York, USA, to gain a better appreciation of how hurricanes can initiate and generate breaches in barrier islands for future coastal community protection in these areas. This paper is a timely and important contribution to the literature examining the impacts of hurricanes on these environments with significant implications for the communities and infrastructure developed in these regions. The technique applied is sound and can be translated to other geomophologically-similar sites around the world to improve coastal hazard management and adaptation. As such, the paper would be of interest to a wide audience.
The paper is generally well written (but see minor comments below). The introduction, methods and results are clear and conclusive (but see minor comments below). However, the paper is not acceptable in its current form based on the Discussion.
The Discussion is a very well written interpretation of the results, but lacks any connectivity to other research. It is unbelievable that not a single reference is cited in the Discussion! I urge the authors to compare their results and interpretations with the work of others who have conducted similar analyses in coastal barrier island systems. The authors could also compare their findings with the findings from other sandy coastal systems, and from other types of coastal hazards.
In addition, it would be very useful to practitioners, industry, policy-makers, decision-makers and the local community if the authors could extrapolate their findings to articulate what the impacts on the community and infrastructure would be if a repeat of this storm occurred today.
Minor comments:
L12: Please rephrase “we’ve”
L50: space between ‘),’ and ‘these’
Throughout: Referencing not in correct format, e.g. L51 “by (Visser” – this is likely a software issue, but please correct.
L80: What is the difference between Moriches and Moriches Bay? Could these be labelled in Figure 1?
L81: What is the population?
L81: Please provide some details on this damage
Figure 1: Is this a LiDAR image? What is the vertical scale? The storm track in the inset could be more pronounced. Could you please label the features ie. the Moriches Bay and the various islands, in the main image. What is that weird cross hatching in the barrier island between b and c?
L91-92: What is the evidence for this? How quickly did they close after the Hurricane? Please explain how significant these breaches were for flooding? Please show where these breaches occurred on Figure 1.
L100: In what case? Recommend deleting
L102: Please spell out “ADCIRC” and use acronym in future.
Figure 5: Hanging sentence “(west” – Should there be something following this?
Overall, I believe the above changes are easily addressed by the authors and I look forward to seeing the next iteration of this manuscript.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2929-RC1 -
AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Catherine Jeffries, 05 Jan 2025
Thank you for taking the time to review this paper and offer suggestions for improving the quality of the research and writing. We have worked our way through the reviewer comments and addressed them in the attached file. Please see the Author remarks at the top of the document for the key to how the replies are structured.
-
AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Catherine Jeffries, 05 Jan 2025
-
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Adam Switzer, 05 Dec 2024
General comments
The study presents convincing evidence and modelling for breaching of a barrier island during a hurricanes on the US East coast that impact inundation mainland. They demonstrate that the number, location, and size of the breaches can significantly change the inundation potential for the coastline.
The authors create a framework that allows breaching to develop during a simulation and imposes a breach in an approximation of a Gaussian bell-curve that deepens over time. They then simulate storm events by varying the size, location, and number of breaches in the barrier island and examining the storm surge and inundation is affected by breaching; total inundation has a logarithmic relationship with total breach area which tapers off after the entire island is removed. Breach location is also an important predictor of inundation and bay surge.
The work is important as understanding vulnerable areas and examining how breaching impacts barriers can provide opportunities for shoring up infrastructure (or perhaps the authors could add a stronger suggestion of not building or rebuilding in these locations). The work will also allow planning that minimizes hurricane disruption to coastal communities.
Specific Comments
Lines 30-33 Awkward sentence
Line 40 and 44 Check referencing format
Line 46 at and at in same sentence
Line 53 just geological mapping no need for the ‘a’
Line 83 change especially to a real word like particularly
Line 88 add more details maximum winds
Line 159 should be computation time
Line 282 awkward sentence
Figures
I suggest you unify fonts and scales. The size of the text in figs 8,9 and 10 also seems a little odd. The lat longs are in larger font size then the scale and features. You may also want to annotated the figures to highlights the key features you want the reader to be drawn to.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-2929-RC2 -
AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Catherine Jeffries, 05 Jan 2025
Thank you for taking the time to review this paper and offer suggestions for improving the quality of the research and writing. We have worked our way through the reviewer comments and addressed them in the attached file. Please see the Author remarks at the top of the document for the key to how the replies are structured.
-
AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Catherine Jeffries, 05 Jan 2025
-
AC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2024-2929', Catherine Jeffries, 05 Jan 2025
Thank you for taking the time to review this paper and offer suggestions for improving the quality of the research and writing. We have worked our way through the reviewer comments and addressed them in the attached file. Please see the Author remarks at the top of the document for the key to how the replies are structured.
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Catherine Renae Jeffries
Robert Weiss
Jennifer L. Irish
Kyle Mandli
The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.
- Preprint
(5311 KB) - Metadata XML