Characterization of sands in the beach-dune systems of the Eastern Canary Islands.

Characterization of sands in the beach-dune systems of the Eastern Canary Islands.

A pocket beach that reaches equilibrium after becoming disconnected from a large system of beaches. Playa Barca (Fuerteventura)

[EN] Playa Barca is a 370 m long beach located within the system of the Leeward beaches on the Jandía peninsula, Fuerteventura. This system of beaches represents one of the major sources of economic income to the island, both because of its natural landscape that attract a specific type of tourism, and because of its particular climate conditions that make these beaches ideal for practicing wind-water sports. Nevertheless, in the past decades, this area has suffered from a significant and worrying coastline retreat. In order to look for an explanation to this retreat, five topographic surveys were carried out in October 1999, February 2001, February 2002, February 2003 and February 2013 to track the beach behavior in the last 15 years. A total station Topcon GTS-303D was used for this purpose. Surveys were carried out during low spring tides, so that the outer limit was the furthest possible depending on wave conditions. The inner limit covered part of the dunes in the backshore. From these topographic data both coastline changes and the sedimentary balance have been obtained.

Beach Profiles: Complying with the EU Directive

Interpretación realizada por las alumnas en prácticas de la Facultad de Traducción e Interpretación, Danaide Rodríguez Hernández, Esther Ramírez Millares y Estíbaliz López-Leiton Trujillo, ,

Sedimentary budget on Las Canteras Beach, Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain)

[EN]This paper deals with sedimentary balances and how the sediments move in function of the waves in a beach with special boundary conditions. For this purpose, the topography of the beach was done with a total station and two prism. Topography data were analyzed with SIG software. Wave data were taken from deepwater buoys. Two parameters were calculated, the Dean’s parameter and Larson’s (1988) parameter, to know the type of the beach. Balances show an accretion of sand on the beach even though in some periods there were big losses of sand on the beach. The parameters calculated are not good to estimate the type of the beach due to the boundary conditions of this particular beach