Texas Barrier Islands
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey hit Texas, causing remarkable flooding in Houston and variable amounts of erosion and deposition along the coastal barrier islands.
In 2017, a team from UT-Austin, led by David Mohrig went to the coast to study washover fan deposition and dune erosion at Matagorda Island, a barrier island in the central portion of the Texas coast.
Seaward directed storm surge during Hurricane Harvey carved channels through the dune and beach system at San Jose Island. Our team (Arisa Ruangsirikulchai, David Mohrig, and I), visited SJI in 2018 to investigate the style and controls of the erosion, as part of Arisa’s UT-Austin honors thesis.
One of the most surprising observations was the four large barges that had been ripped from their moorings in the intracoastal waterway and emplaced on the backside of the dune ridge by Harvey’s seaward directed floodwaters.
2019 Field Campaign at San Jose Island
Our team returned to SJI to investigate the recovery and extent of filling of the return flow channels. The results of this work are in prep. in a forthcoming peer-reviewed manuscript.
