CLIMATE CHANGE EFFECTS IN ESTUARINE MORPHODYNAMICS: EFFICIENT LONG-TERM MODELING

Coasts are highly dynamic areas that are particularly sensitive to the effects of climate change (CC) due to their geographical location and the variety of physical processes that shape them. It is well known in the scientific community that CC modifies the characteristics of various marine variables; in particular, the latest IPCC report (AR6, 2022) indicates that, regardless of future greenhouse gas emissions, a global mean sea level rise of between 10 and 25 centimeters is expected by 2050. In recent years, the modeling capacity of coastal morphodynamics has developed significantly in low-lying sandy beaches; however, these advances have not been directly extended to transitional zones such as estuaries, tidal inlets, or river mouths, mainly due to the difficulty and high computational cost of modeling the multiple physical processes and their interactions (Toimil et al., 2020). Transitional zones promote the proliferation of species and ecosystems of high ecological value; moreover, these areas are under great social and economic pressure, as a significant proportion of the population (e.g., 40percent in Spain) lives near the coast.