Statistical characterization of erosion and sediment transport mechanics in shallow tidal environments – Part 1: Erosion dynamics

Abstract. Reliable descriptions of erosion events are foundational to effective frameworks relevant to the fate of tidal landscape evolution. Besides the rhythmic, predictable action of tidal currents, erosion in shallow tidal environments is strongly influenced by the stochastic wave-induced bottom shear stress (BSS), mainly responsible for sediment resuspension on tidal flats. However, the absence of sufficiently long, measured time series of BSS prevents a direct analysis of the combined tide- and wave-driven erosion dynamics and its proper representation in long-term morphodynamic models. Here we test the hypothesis of describing erosion dynamics in shallow tidal environments as a Poisson process by analysing, with the peak-over-threshold theory, the BSS time series computed using a fully coupled, bi-dimensional numerical model. We perform this analysis on the Venice Lagoon, Italy, taking advantage of several historical surveys done in the last 4 centuries, which allow us to investigate the effects of morphological modifications on spatial and temporal erosion patterns. Our analysis suggests that erosion events on intertidal flats can effectively be modelled as a marked Poisson process in different morphological configurations because the interarrival times, durations, and intensities of the over-threshold exceedances are always well described by exponentially distributed random variables. The resulting statistical characterization allows a straightforward computation of morphological indicators, such as the erosion work, and paves the way for a novel synthetic, yet reliable, approach for the long-term morphodynamic modelling of tidal environments.