Publications by authors named "Andrew C Ritchie"
Coastal erosion outpaces land generation along many of the world's deltas and a significant percentage of shorelines, and human-caused alterations to coastal sediment budgets can be important drivers of this erosion. For sediment-starved and erosion-prone coasts, large-scale enhancement of sediment supply may be an important, but poorly understood, management option. Here we provide new topographic measurements that show patterns and trends of beach accretion following the restoration of sediment supply from a massive dam removal project.
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- Sediment pulses significantly alter river and coastal landscapes, but measuring these changes has been challenging due to their unpredictable nature.
- The removal of two large dams on the Elwha River provided a unique opportunity to study the effects of a large sediment influx, with about 30 million tons of sediment released for observation.
- Over five years, nearly 65% of this sediment was eroded, influencing river channel morphology and contributing to the growth of the delta by approximately 60 hectares, with geomorphic changes peaking one to two years post-dam removal.