Center for Marine Science

CMS Spotlight on Student Research

CMS is proud to engage our students in the research process in meaningful ways. Many coastal and marine science students have unique research opportunities, and we love highlighting their hard work. The CMS Spotlight on Student Research is a way to share student research posters and recognize student contributions to our scientific mission.

To submit a poster to our spotlight, please fill out our survey.

This month's spotlight: Drew Davey

Drew is an undergrad coastal engineering major. This poster will be presented at the yearly American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) National Conference and is the product of work completed over the summer and into the fall, with the summer work supported by CSURF’s Summer Undergraduate Research and Creativity Award (SURCA).

A field experiment was conducted at Kure Beach, NC in order to better understand small-scale sediment transport processes in the swash zone. The experiment was conducted on the foreshore spanning one tide cycle on a reflective beach (slope of 1:6). A pair of standalone Conductivity Concentration Profilers (CCP+) were installed on two rapid-deployable, pier-mounted deployment rigs that were strapped and tensioned to the Kure Beach ocean fishing pier, spaced 5 m apart in the cross-shore. The CCP+ measures sediment concentration profiles in the sheet flow layer and tracks the instantaneous bed level at 8 Hz over a 3 cm vertical range. This study marked the first field deployment of the CCP+ system in the swash zone. The breaking waves in the inner-surf and swash zones were of the collapsing/surging type. The sensors at the landward site were inundated for about 6 hours while the station more seaward was inundated for roughly 8 hours. Communication with the CCP+ sensors was achieved with a Raspberry Pi 3B+ configured as a router and DHCP server, enabling remote control of the CCP+ system and live access to data via remote desktop. Periodic bed level fluctuations on the order of several centimeters were observed at time scales ranging from 5 to 15 minutes. Smaller-scale intra-swash bed level fluctuations on the order of 1 to 2 cm were also observed. Ultimately, the CCP+ system will allow for more accurate predictions of sediment transport and beach morphology on barrier islands.