Study of the impacts of extreme events on morphosedimentary changes of sandy/gravel coasts of the Western Iceland

The project EVEXTREMIS for “événements extrêmes en Islande” is focusing on the “Study of the impacts of extreme events on morphosedimentary changes of the sandy-gravel accumulation forms of the western coast of Iceland”. It is a continuation of the EXTREMEVENT project started in 2014 with funding from LabexMER (2014-2018) and the Institut Paul Emile Victor (2019-2022) (https://www-iuem.univ-brest.fr/pops/projects/extremevent). This project is led by researchers with long-standing collaborations, coming from the Université de Bretagne Occidentale (laboratories LETG UMR 6554 CNRS, LGO UMR 6538 CNRS, and LOPS UMR 6523 CNRS-UBO/IFREMER/IRD, and from the Université de Rimouski au Québec UQAR (Department of Biology, Chemistry and Geography). This project also benefits from collaborations with the University Centre of the Westfjords (Ísafjörður), and the Icelandic public organization (Vegagerdin – Icelandic Road and Coastal Administration) specialized on meteorological and marine survey.

The project EXTREMEVENT is conducted through the problematic of global warming that would have as supposed impacts, an increase of the frequency and/or intensity of storm events at medium and high latitudes. In that context, the study of coastal morphodynamic processes of the sandy-gravel accumulation forms of the western coast of Iceland is proposed. It is based on the annual survey on some representative study sites corresponding to barriers, spit-barriers, spits and beaches. The analysis method is based on the cross study of morphological changes (such as barrier retreat, and/or erosion of dune/beach systems) and local and/or regional hydrodynamic conditions (wave and tide). Comparisons with the dynamics observed on the lower latitudes of Brittany are realized through the French Service National d’Observation SNO-DYNALIT funded by the CNRS-INSU. This scientific work is based on topo-morphological measurements using KAP and UAV aerial images, and DGPS field measurements; it is also based on hydrodynamic analysis using in-situ wave and tide measurements.