%0 Conference Proceedings %T Growth of Cuspate Spits %+ Géosciences Montpellier %+ Laboratoire Charles Coulomb (L2C) %+ Systèmes Complexes et Phénomènes Nonlinéaires (SCPN) %+ Institut de physique du globe de Strasbourg (IPGS) %A Bouchette, Frédéric %A Manna, Miguel %A Montalvo, Pablo %A Nutz, Alexis %A Schuster, Mathieu %A Ghienne, Jean-François %< avec comité de lecture %Z L2C:14-048 %B 13th International Coastal Symposium %C Durban, South Africa %N 70 %P 047-052 %8 2014-04-13 %D 2014 %Z Nonlinear Sciences [physics]/Pattern Formation and Solitons [nlin.PS] %Z Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/GeomorphologyConference papers %X The present work concerns cuspate spits: slightly symmetrical geomorphic features growing along the shoreline in shallow waters. We develop a new formulation for the dynamics of cuspate spits. Our approach relies on classical paradigms such as a conservation law to the shoreface scale and an explicit formula for alongshore sediment transport. We derive a non-linear diffusion equation and a fully explicit solution for the growth of cuspate spits. From this general expression, we found interesting applications to quantify shoreline dynamics in the presence of cuspate spits. In particular, we point out a simple method for the datation of a cuspate spit given a limited number of input parameters. Furthermore, we develop a method to quantify the mean alongshore diffusivity along a shoreline perturbed by well-defined cuspate spits of known sizes. Finally, we introduce a formal relationship between the geometric characteristics (amplitude, length) of cuspate spits, which reproduce the self-similarity of these geomorphic features. %G English %2 https://hal.science/hal-01006569/document %2 https://hal.science/hal-01006569/file/JCR_SI_70_009_Bouchette_et_al.pdf %L hal-01006569 %U https://hal.science/hal-01006569 %~ INSU %~ UNIV-AG %~ CNRS %~ GM %~ UNIV-STRASBG %~ L2C %~ GIP-BE %~ AGROPOLIS %~ MIPS %~ B3ESTE %~ UNIV-MONTPELLIER %~ SITE-ALSACE %~ UM-2015-2021