Project description:

The study area is located in the coastal zone of Argassi on the southeastern coast of the island of Zakynthos. Bounded East of the ruins of St. Spyridon in the Northeast and Cape Dabia in the Southeast. The area suffers severe errosion problem by wave action. The total length of the area studied was about 2,50km. In coastal engineering study investigated the coastal’s erosion and proposed coastal protection works.

The coastal engineering study included the following:

• Data collection: a) climatic data of the region (e.g. rainwater run-off and according data, etc) in order to calculate the wave climate in the deep water, b) aerial photos of different years for the analysis of the evolution of the coastline.
• Numerical modeling: Waves’ transformation from deep water to the coastal zone taking into account refraction, defraction and waves’ breaking.
• Sediment analysis: seabed sediment data collection, laboratory analysis for determining the composition of the sediment particle size and other physical and statistical parameters (e.g., average diameter, standard deviation, etc).
• Sediment transport: Calculation of longshore and crosshore sediment tranport, taking into account the results of waves’ simulation, the analyses of sediments, the streams and rivers, the sea currents, the tides and the coastline’s changes in previous years on the basis of aerial photographs. The calculation of sediment transport was by using empirical (CERC) and numerical models (STWAVE, SBEACH, GENESIS). Simulated the longshore and crosshore sediment transport on the existing situation and investigated alternative vertical and parallel works to the coastal protection. Finally, simulated the evolution of the coastline under the wave attack before and after the construction of each alternative coastal’s protection works.