Interannual Comparison Of Aeolian Sediment Transport Events At Greenwich Dunes, PEI, Canada

Previous work conducted by the signing authors at Greenwich Dunes, in Prince Edward National Park, Canada, suggests that the majority of aeolian sediment input to the dunes over the course of several months is driven by a few isolated events. The type of events that effectively delivered sand from the beach to the dune were of medium frequency and small to medium magnitude. The probabilities of large and very large magnitude wind events to result in strong transport was small because of the limitations imposed by an ice and snow cover, moisture, and short fetch distances. The long term monitoring station responsible for the collection of the nine months data set at Greenwich continued recording for at least another year, and thus the potential existed for an interannual comparison. In this paper we analyse the statistical significance of results from the first year of monitoring given the new available longer time series. In particular we address the existence of large magnitude wind events that result in no aeolian sediment transport and the implications for large over-predictions of sediment input to foredunes at the meso-scale. We use results on the nature of transport events effectively involved in foredune building to discuss previous findings and implications for management and modelling of coastal dunes at the meso-scale.