Climate changes, such as rising sea levels and more storms in Northern Europe, mean that coasts may become even more vulnerable to erosion. The current models used to predict how sand and particles move across the coastal profiles have difficulty predicting whether the sand will move out into the sea or back towards the coast. Nor can these models predict how microplastic particles polluting the oceans will spread. This means that we do not know exactly what the coasts will look like in the future or where the microplastics will end up.
The SHORE project (Simulating coastal HydrOdynamics and particle tRansport procEsses) will try to solve this problem by developing a new model that can accurately predict how sand and microplastics move both to and from the coast. This new model will do things differently from the current models, for example, by considering several new factors that we know affect the coastal processes.
