Thermal and Mechanical Modeling of Coastal Erosion Processes on Tuktoyaktuk Island, Northwest Territories ...

• Main Author: Ouellette, Danika Sophie
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Schulich School of Engineering 2021
• Subjects: Arctic; Permafrost; Coastal Erosion; Numerical Modeling; Engineering > Environmental; Engineering > Marine and Ocean; Geotechnology; Northwest Territories; Tuktoyaktuk; Tuktoyaktuk Island; Beaufort Sea; Ice; permafrost
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/prism/39266; https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/113949

Arctic coasts are particularly vulnerable to rapid and extreme erosion due to the presence of ice-rich permafrost sediment, with erosion rates varying anywhere from 1 to 20 m/yr in the region. Erosion is limited to the open-water season such that the factors controlling rates of erosion are warmer air temperatures and storm surges impacting the sensitive ice-rich permafrost coastal bluffs. Erosional processes in the Arctic are unique and consist of coupled thermal and mechanical mechanisms. The coastal community of Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, located along the Beaufort Sea coast in the western Canadian Arctic, has been dealing with the consequences of coastal erosion for many decades and will likely face displacement due to accelerating rates of erosion. In this study, a process-based thermal-mechanical erosion numerical model was developed for Tuktoyaktuk Island, which currently shelters the harbour and eastern shores of the community from wave impact, to investigate erosional processes commonly ...