McCall, R.T., Masselink, G., Poate, T.G., Bradbury, A.P., Russell, P.E. and M.A. Davidson, 2013. Predicting overwash on gravel barriers.

A process-based non-hydrostatic flow model, which includes the effect of infiltration and exfiltration, but no morphology, is applied to simulate overwash events on gravel barriers. After calibration, the model is shown to produce similar predictions for overwash as the empirical Barrier Inertia Model for parameter combinations within the validity range of the empirical model. When applied to 25 historical storm impacts, the process-based model shows improvement over the empirical model in predicting overwash. The model is applied to study the sensitivity of overwash to input parameters outside the validity range of the empirical Barrier Inertia model. This analysis shows that two parameters currently missing in the Barrier Inertia Model, the depth of the gravel beach toe and the gravel beach slope, greatly affect the threshold criteria for overwash.