The Xiamen Symposium on Marine Environmental Sciences (XMAS 2025)

Tidal flats are dynamic ecosystems located at the interface between land and sea, providing critical ecosystem services such as coastal protection, carbon sequestration, and sediment trapping. However, tidal flats are facing increasing threats due to climate change, reduced sediment supply, land reclamation, and urban expansion in recent decades. Effective protection and management for tidal flats are imperative to ensure their stability and sustainable use. Conventional coastal protection strategies have relied on hard engineering solutions, such as seawalls and breakwaters. In recent years, there has been a growing shift towards soft engineering approaches and nature-based solutions, including artificial nourishment, which has been widely applied to protect sandy beaches. However, the application of artificial nourishment to tidal flat ecosystems is less common, and its effects on tidal flat morphodynamics are not well understood. This study uses the novel autonomous observation system and the DET-ESTMORF model based Dynamic Equilibrium Theory (DET) to explore the impacts of artificial sandbar nourishment on tidal flat morphology. The objectives of this study are to: (1) quantify the impact of nourished sandbars on cross-tidal flat hydrodynamics; (2) evaluate the effects of artificial sandbars on the equilibrium morphology of tidal flats; and (3) examine how nourished sandbars respond to varying wave climates and sediment supplies. This study expands the application of DET to assess artificial nourishment's effects in tidal flat morphodynamics and provides new insights into managing human interference for sustainable coastal restoration.