Beach erosion potential for severe nor'easters

Beach erosion is one of the most significant impacts of coastal storms beca use beach width is a measure of coastal vulnerability far beachfront houses . Storm tide, wave energy, and duration are three major factors determining storm erosion potential. Several authors have proposed erosion indexes for large storms in terms of storm intensity measured by wind speed or wave en ergy and duration, but the role of the storm tide has not been fully incorp orated into analyses. It has been found that the erosion potential of sever e nor'easters is more dependent on storm tide than wave energy and duration . Thus, are propose a quantitative index of storm erosion potential that in cludes storm tide based on hourly water level measurements. Our storm erosi on potential index (SEPI) is the sum of the products of hourly storm surge and corresponding storm tide water levels, and it correlates well with obse rved erosion.