Aragonés Luis

University of Alicante | UA · Departamento de Ingeniería Civil

Human activities like dam construction in rivers and urban development in coastal areas, combined with climate change, are degrading coastal systems. As a result, many European countries have implemented laws and strategies to protect their shorelines. This research focuses on Guardamar del Segura in Spain, where human actions in the Segura River b...

Storm surge is a fundamental process to understanding the behaviour of sea level. This variable, which depends on atmospheric pressure and wind action, has been widely documented. However, few studies quantify these relationships for various geographic areas. This study analyses the most influential factors in the variation of storm surges at sever...

Dune systems have recently become fundamental natural solutions for the protection of the coast. The study of its morphodynamic features in storm situations is well documented in the literature. However, the morphological behaviour of these ecosystems when they are artificially modified by humans is still not adequately known. In this study, the mo...

La erosión costera es un fenómeno natural que se está convirtiendo en un problema creciente a lo largo de las costas de todo el mundo. En esta investigación se ha estudiado la evolución de la Playa de Poniente, Benidorm (España), la cual presenta un comportamiento morfológico diferente según la zona analizada. Para ello, se ha realizado en primer l...

Este libro presenta una colección de problemas y casos prácticos sobre diferentes ámbitos de vanguardia en la ingeniería marítima.Se ha estructurado en cuatro capítulos: «Diques en talud», «Diques verticales», «Rebasabilidad y cota de inundación» y finalmente «Actuaciones en la costa y elementos de protección costeros». Los autores se han centrado...

The ninth International Symposium Monitoring of Mediterranean Coastal Areas: Problems and Measurements Techniques was organized by CNR-IBE in collaboration with Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology, and Natural History Museum of the Mediterranean and under the patronage of University of Florence, Accademia dei Lincei, Accademia dei Ge...

The ninth International Symposium Monitoring of Mediterranean Coastal Areas: Problems and Measurements Techniques was organized by CNR-IBE in collaboration with Italian Society of Silviculture and Forest Ecology, and Natural History Museum of the Mediterranean and under the patronage of University of Florence, Accademia dei Lincei, Accademia dei Ge...

One of the main problems faced in coastal management is the loss or destruction of beaches due to erosion. A considerable diversity of factors is involved in coastal erosion, which makes it a complex system to study. The quality of the material that constitutes the beach, as well as the choice of appropriate materials for its nourishment are two of...

The accurate knowledge of the location and movement of the sand bars is important for the coastal manager to establish correctly the coastal defence elements. This work applies a numerical model of finite elements based on Galerkin's formulation for predicting the location of the start, crest and end of the outer bar. The model that shows the best...

Many factors can influence the shoreline retreat, such as: the maritime climate, anthropogenic actions like the construction of ports, dams, etc. To overcome this problem, it is necessary to understand the influence of each of the factors involved in beach erosion. This work tackles the problem of shoreline erosion from the study of the beach mater...

Urbanization and anthropogenic activities have generated significant imbalances in coastal areas. This study analysed the shoreline evolution of the Bay of Cullera (Spain), characterized by strong urban and tourist pressure and with important human interventions during the last century. The evolution of the shoreline was analysed using 60 years of...

The 8th International Symposium "Monitoring of Mediterranean Coastal Areas. Problems and Measurements Techniques" was organized by CNR-IBE in collaboration with FCS Foundation, and Natural History Museum of the Mediterranean and under the patronage of University of Florence, Accademia dei Geogofili, Tuscany Region and Livorno Province. It is the oc...

En los últimos años, la crisis financiera global y la desaceleración económica que ha castigado a sectores como el de la construcción y obras públicas en España ha supuesto una drástica reducción de la demanda y calidad del alumnado que cursa titulaciones de Ingeniería Civil en todo el país. La investigación propuesta pretende explorar las sinergia...

A lo largo de la vida de las asignaturas de Ingeniería Portuaria y Costera y de Ingeniería Marítima se han implantado diferentes metodologías docentes. El objetivo de este trabajo es determinar el mejor sistema de evaluación para mejorar el rendimiento del alumnado. Los resultados muestran que la metodología empleada por el profesorado tiene un cie...

Depending on the time of development of a crop temperature below 0 °C can cause damage to the plant, altering its development and subsequent yield. Since frosts are identified from the minimum air temperature, the objective of this research paper is to generate forecast -(predictive) models at 1, 3 and 5 days of the minimum daily temperature (Tmin)...

In the past few years, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have achieved great popularity for civil uses. One of the present main uses of these devices is low-cost aerial photogrammetry, being especially useful in coastal environments. In this work, a high-resolution 3D model of a beach section in Guardamar del Segura (Spain) has been produced by employi...

Leptospirosis is considered the most globally widespread zoonotic illness; it has been classified as an emerging or reemerging infectious disease by the World Health Organization. Leptospirosis is a disease caused by a pathogenic spirochete of the genus Leptospira. The infection occurs by contacting with the urine of animal reservoirs or contaminat...

Este estudio se centra en la costa de Guardamar del Segura, Alicante (España), fuertemente afectada por la presión antrópica y la erosión de sus playas. El principal objetivo es conocer la situación actual y evaluar la erosión dunar causada por la regresión de la costa. Asimismo, analizar el estado de la regeneración de 2011 y validar el uso de RPA...

Beach management is based on administering technical, environmental, social and political issues to solve coastal problems. To assist coastal management, quality systems have evolved from Beach Certifications Schemes to indicator systems that take into account the three beach functions —natural, protection and recreation—. This study analyses: i) T...

Coastal erosion and lack of sediment supply are a serious global problem. It is therefore necessary to determine the depth of closure (DoC) of a beach—key parameter in the calculation of the sand volume and the location of the beach protection elements—in a precise way. For this reason, this work generates a numerical model based on Galerkin's form...

Depth of Closure (DoC) calculation has been analysed for engineers and researchers during decades due to its relevant importance on marine works, such as beach nourishments or littoral defense projects. Several methods can be found in the literature related to the evaluation of DoC. However, they just focus on the bottom elevation change, leaving a...

The construction of harbours on the coast and/or dams in river courses prevents the contribution of sediments from rivers and ravines to the coastline and interferes with natural coastal dynamics. In the present study, the main objective is to provide information to the coastal engineer to predict and quantify the wear and tear of sand for artifici...

Artificial neural networks (ANN) have been widely used successfully to solve coastal engineering problems. In this article, they are used to model the cross-shore profile of sandy beaches taking into account the possible effect of marine vegetation (Posidonia oceanica). Sixty ANNs were generated by modifying both the inputs and the number of neuron...

Tourism makes an important contribution to the economies of some territories, especially ‘sun and sand’ tourism that uses public domain areas. Some of these areas are operated through concession systems. This article studies the evolution of 31 eminently touristic beaches in 5 provinces of the Spanish Mediterranean coast during the period 2005–2016...

Sand is the third most consumed material in the world, although it is a very scarce material. An exhaustive knowledge of sand and its behaviour against the waves is important for selecting the most suitable material to avoid shoreline erosion. To this end, a pattern of behaviour against accelerated wear test has been sought for 26 sand samples with...

Spain has traditionally been a country where the coast and beaches have acted as raw material to develop the current tourism industry. This has always led diverse scale works and coastal transformations by Public Administrations in order to satisfy tourist needs and striving to attract a greater number of travelers. However, little and less is know...

This paper presents a model of the cross-shore beach profile taking into account the presence of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica whose ultimate objective is to reduce the volume of sand used in beach nourishment. The methodology describes the training, validation, testing and application of models of artificial neural networks (ANN) for computing t...

Storms can alter the beach shape, relocating large volumes of sediments and generating drastic changes in the coastline. In the last 60years, beaches shoreline behaviour has been different even though the energy of the waves was similar. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the factors that affect the sandy coasts for better future management....

Actions taken to prevent or reduce coastal erosion often do not have the desired effect, leading to major problems instead of solving the original one. This research focuses on why a nourished beach- with borrowed sand and 0.05% of particles <0.063 mm- causes the presence of suspended particles that are observed by beach users as turbidity. This me...

There are many activities and uses in the coastal environment, which has historically attracted the humans. This attraction has led to many anthropic actions that have generated imbalances, more important as the human pressure increases. This research focuses on the effects of these pressures along of 11 km of the coastline of Guardamar del Segura,...

Obtaining depth of closure (DoC) in an accurate manner is a fundamental issue for coastal engineering, since good results for coastal structures and beach nourishment depend mainly on DoC. Currently, there are two methods for obtaining the DoC, mathematical formulations and profile surveys. However, these methods can incur important errors if one d...

The erosion of the world's coasts and the shortage of sand to mitigate beach erosion are leading to the increasingly common use of gravel for coastal protection and beach nourishment. Therefore, in order to determine the amount of gravel required for such actions, it is important to know perfectly the equilibrium profile of gravel beaches. However,...

The paper describes the training, validation, testing and application of models of artificial neural networks (ANN) for computing the cross-shore beach profile of the sand beaches of the province of Valencia (Spain). Sixty ANN models were generated by modifying both the input variables as the number of neurons in the hidden layer. The input variabl...

Monitoring of the quality of bathing water in line with the European Commission bathing water directive (Directive 2006/7/EC) is a significant economic expense for those countries with great lengths of coastline. In this study a numerical model based on finite elements is generated whose objective is partially substituting the microbiological analy...

Human intervention on the coast has been intense, due to the source of wealth that the coastal areas represent, especially in the form of tourism, which has resulted in a rapid erosion of its beaches. This paper discusses the current state of beach management in the various competent public administrations on the Costa Blanca (SE Spanish-Mediterran...

Everyone is aware of the special relationship that man has with the coast; from the beginning of mankind, humans have been attracted to the littoral zone for the construction of settlements and the use of its resources. Subsequently, humans have evolved, leaving an increasingly large footprint on this medium. Hence, there is a need to deepen our kn...

Numerous studies and theories have emerged for evaluating the quality of beaches using different parameters. In recent years in the European region, one of the most important aspects when evaluating a beach is the quality of water and sand. The quality of water is represented by the amount of Intestinal Enterococcus and Escherichia coli. This param...

Our research is focused on the city of Alicante (Spain). In concrete, the sunken area studied is placed at the south of Alicante Port, being the point of entry from the airport to the city. There are two important reasons that have generated that depressed area. Firstly, the development of the city has led to a change in the use of the soil, and se...

Tourism development in recent decades has involved a large urban development in coastal areas, with different anthropogenic structural interventions on the coast such as the construction of commercial buildings and marinas, which has led to intense erosion and large imbalances in the last century. This situation also affects the city of Alicante, w...

This article focuses on the optimal architecture of the neural network for determining the three characteristic points of the bars (starting, crest and final point). For the definition of the network, precision profiles, sedimentological and wave data were used. A total of 209 profiles taken for 22 years was used. The inputs were analysed and selec...

Most of the beaches in the world have serious erosion problems. To solve this problem, there are different methods of beach nourishment, which consist mainly of a feedback from the beach by pouring sand and with some protection element as dikes or breakwaters. The problem arises when selecting the optimal size of sediment for nourishment. The liter...

Control of water quality of coastal waters is essential to ensure the safety of bathers. Therefore, the current legislation establishes maximum concentration levels of faecal bacteria, in particular Escheri-chia coli and intestinal Enterococci. After several studies, it is known that there are environmental and physical factors such as the level of...

One of the main problems of coastlines around the world is their erosion. There are many studies that have tried to link coastal erosion with different parameters such as: maritime climate, sediment transport , sea level rise etc. However, it is unclear to what extent these factors influence coastal erosion. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel...

The depth of closure of the beach profile, from now on termed as DoC, is a key parameter to perform effective evaluations of beach nourishments or coastal defence works. It is defined for a given time interval, as the closest depth to the shore at which there is no significant change in seabed elevation and no significant net sediment transport bet...

The beaches are complex systems that can be studied from different points of view and meet more than a mission to protect the coast. Their management consists of assigning solutions to problems and for this to be correct all factors involved have to be taken into account. In order to understand how management is done on the coast of the province of...

Erosion on sand beaches is a problem worldwide, which together with the shortage of sand justifies the great importance of understanding the processes involved in the regression of the shoreline in order to know and adopt solutions. This study analysed the influence of sediment wear on beaches regression. For this, nine morphological units on Caste...

The study of equilibrium profile is a fundamental concept in beach morphodynamics and necessary in the design of nourishment. For this reason, it is important to introduce new modelling methodologies that are capable of analysing its behaviour. The aim of the research was to generate mathematical models for obtaining parameter A of the potential fu...

In this paper, mathematical models for obtaining the parameter A of the potential function, which describes the equilibrium beach profile, were generated. The aim of the research was to analyse the most important variables related to the equilibrium beach profile, so that the models are used only those variables that are easy to obtain. On the othe...

Our research is focused on the city of Alicante (Spain). In concrete, the sunken area studied is placed at the south of Alicante Port, being the point of entry from the airport to the city. There are two important reasons that have generated that depressed area. Firstly, the development of the city has led to a change in the use of the soil, and se...

Everyone is aware of the special relationship that man has with the coast; from the beginning of mankind, humans have been attracted to the littoral zone for the construction of settlements and the use of its resources. Subsequently, humans have evolved, leaving an increasingly large footprint on this medium. Hence, there is a need to deepen our kn...

Human intervention on the coast has been intense, due to the source of wealth that the coastal areas represent, especially in the form of tourism, which has resulted in a rapid erosion of its beaches. This paper discusses the current state of beach management in the various competent public administrations on the Costa Blanca (SE Spanish-Mediterran...

Tourism development in recent decades has involved large urban development in coastal areas, with different anthropogenic structural interventions on the coast such as the construction of commercial buildings and marinas, which led to intense erosion and large imbalances in the last century. This situation also affects the city of Alicante, with th...

Numerous studies and theories have emerged for evaluating the quality of beaches using different parameters. In recent years in the European region one of the most important aspects when evaluating a beach is the quality of water and sand. The quality of water is represented by the amount of Intestinal Enterococcus and Escherichia coli. This parame...

Coastal areas have been historically characterized as being a source of wealth. Nowadays, beaches have become more relevant as a place for rest and leisure. This had led to a very high population pressure due to rapid urbanisation processes. The impacts associated with coastal tourism, demand the development of anthropic actions to protect the shor...

A multidisciplinary study was made assessing the impact of the construction of a harbour on an existing Roman fish farm, which was excavated in the first century BC and placed in Alicante, on the SE coast of Spain. The effect of the harbour on the wave frequencies and the velocity of the streams has been modelled for the different building stages,...

A multidisciplinary study was made assessing the impact of the construction of a harbour on an existing Roman fish farm, which was excavated in the first century BC and placed in Alicante, on the SE coast of Spain. The effect of the harbour on the wave frequencies and the velocity of the streams has been modelled for the different building stages,...

One of the main problems that coasts around the world present, is the regression and erosion of beaches. However, the factors involved in these processes are unclear. In this study, the influence of sediment erosion on beach regression has been analysed. In order to do that, a three-step investigation has been carried out. Firstly, coastline variat...