Nicolas Robin

Université de Perpignan | UPVD · Centre of Education and Research on Mediterranean Environments

Foredunes are efficient natural coastal defenses acting as protective barriers during storm events. A striking example is the response of coastal dunes along the Aquitaine Coast (SW France) to the 2013-2014 winter, which was the most energetic winter since at least the mid-20th century in most of the NE Atlantic. The aim of this study is to analyze...

Comprehensive onshore-offshore surficial and sub-surface mapping of a composite barrier (combination of prograded, aggraded, and/or transgressive segments) have provided a better understanding of the (i) mechanisms responsible for the formation and development of coastal barrier systems, (ii) relationships and interactions among individual parts of...

Numerous studies have been devoted to recurved and hooked spits in micro- and meso-tidal environments, but none have really focused on the peculiar right-angle plan shape exhibited by some spit hooks. The morphodynamics of a complex multi-hooked spit in a macrotidal inlet in Normandy, France, have been investigated using aerial photographs and twel...

Foredunes are efficient natural coastal defenses acting as protective barriers during storm events. They also have the capacity to be an ecosystem hosting significant biodiversity. The economic development and/or recreational use of the foredune commonly results in a modification of natural functioning and the concomitant mixing of natural and anth...

Sand spits with distal hooks have been well documented from coasts with low to moderate tidal ranges unlike high tidal‐range environments. Datasets from 15 LiDAR and 3 UAV surveys between 2009 and 2019 on the Agon spit in Normandy (France), a setting with one of the largest tidal ranges in the world (mean spring tidal range: 11 m), combined with in...

The vast majority of coastal dunes in Europe have been stabilized by increasing vegetation cover since the mid‐20th Century. However, some systems may experience a remobilization phase, generally occurring locally and further propagating alongshore, the drivers of which remain poorly documented. This study investigates the evolutionary paths (stabi...

This study focuses on the dynamics of an intermittent estuary in a wave-dominated (mi-crotidal) area, with low fluvial discharges and strong dominant offshore wind regimes. The aims are to understand the effect of these particular environmental factors in the dynamics of such estuaries. The results allow us to propose a synthetic morphodynamic mode...

The southern part of the Gulf of Lions, formerly described as a double crescentic nearshore bar, may exhibit a third bar closer to the coastline which we defined as Low Beach Bar (LBB). Locally, the inner bar (IB) horn may be less developed and retreated seaward, leaving a larger accommodation space between it and the coastline. This allows the gro...

Impact d’une dune littorale méditerranéenne sur les processus et le transport sédimentaire éolien par vent de terre. Atténuation et changement de direction du vent incident. Influence de la morphologie dunaire sur le transport sédimentaire éolien.

River mouths are highly dynamic environments responding very rapidly to changes in wave energy or river floods. While the morphological response during floods or during marine storm events has been widely documented in the literature, little is known about the mechanisms acting during the co-occurrence of fluvial and marine hazards. This concomitan...

not published nor reviewed yet, it is here "thanks" SSRN

Balouin, Y.; Bourrin, F.; Meslard, F.; Palvadeau, E., and Robin, N., 2020. Assessing the role of storm waves and river discharge on sediment bypassing mechanisms at the Têt river mouth in the Mediterranean (southeast France). In: Malvárez, G. and Navas, F. (eds.), Global Coastal Issues of 2020. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 95, pp....

Billy, J.; Robin, N.; Hein, C.; FitzGerald, D., and Certain, R., 2018. Dominance of inherited geologic framework on the development of coastal barrier system. In: Shim, J.-S.; Chun, I., and Lim, H.S. (eds.), Proceedings from the International Coastal Symposium (ICS) 2018 (Busan, Republic of Korea). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 85,...

This study produces : The 1st RSL reconstruction for the Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon Archipelago Provides: (i) additional details of RSL changes in a region exhibiting great spatial variations in RSL histories (Newfoundland); ii) provides field confirmation that wave-built/aeolian stratigraphic contacts in beach ridges can provide a powerful tool for...

Morphological investigations on the northwest coastal plain of Mauritania (Banc d'Arguin) lead to a revised post-6000 yrs. BP sea-level curve. The region is characterized by extensive sand flats occasionally surmounted by low sand barriers. These barriers pick out a set of paleoshorelines attributed to the six episodes defined by Dia (2013). Morpho...

Slightly oblique nearshore bars are common features on most barred beaches worldwide. However, their great longshore extension requires large spatial scale data sets and thus they have been poorly studied. Our study is based on a large set of data (LiDAR, bathymetric profiles and aerial photographs) to accurately describe the morphology and multi-a...

Constructional sedimentary features can provide insight into past changes in relative sea-level (RSL) in regions where traditional bio-stratigraphic markers are absent. The paraglacial beach-ridge plain at Miquelon-Langlade, located 50 km south of Newfoundland, is an example of a well-preserved regressive barrier. Initiation of this plain correlate...

Lakes are major depositional systems for which the related depositional processes have long been considered relatively simple. Breaking this statement, this study presents a detailed analysis of deposits in Lake Saint-Jean, the third largest natural lake in Québec. In addition to postglacial deltaic and coastal depositional systems fringing the lak...

Lake Saint-Jean is the third largest natural lake in Québec (Canada), however very few studies have focused on the basin-scale limnogeology of this lake. An initial very high-resolution seismic survey of Lake Saint-Jean was conducted in 2011, providing more than 300 km of seismic sections throughout the lake. These seismic profiles permitted the id...

Foredunes are the foremost dunes formed on the backshore of beaches by aeolian sand deposition trapped by vegetation. Many recent studies, on the world, have shown that ground penetrating Radar (GPR) method can give good and useful results over the modern foredunes. Nevertheless none of these studies were performed on a macro-tidal environment. Our...

Current profiles and waves were recorded from a multi-instrumented transect over a double nearshore bar system in the Gulf of Lions, NW Mediterranean Sea (France) during storm conditions with shoreface significant wave heights of up to 3.2 m. The results constitute a preliminary analysis aimed at constraining the 3D nearshore circulation in a micro...

The stratigraphy of the last deglaciation sequence is investigated in Lake Saint-Jean (Québec Province, Canada) based on 300 km of echo-sounder two dimensional seismic profiles. The sedimentary archive of this basin is documented from the Late Pleistocene Laurentidian ice-front recession to the present-day situation. Ten seismic units have been ide...

The field campaign on the Sète coast deployed during the winter 2009 was used to understand the hydrodynamics on a double barred beach in the surf zone during storm periods. The large set of measurements collected at several position and depth were also useful to improve the 3D circulation model Symphonie that takes into account the atmospherics an...

The main objective of the VULSACO (VULnerability of SAndy COasts to climate change and anthropic pressure) project was to investigate present day and potential future vulnerability of sandy coasts at the 2030 horizon, i.e. on a time scale related to climate variability. The method, based on a multidisciplinary approach bringing together geologists,...

This study assesses three different approaches for evaluating coastal vulnerability using indicators. We began by establishing a procedure for binding three codes to simulate realistic or idealized climates. The procedure was validated in terms of hydrodynamics and beach morpho-dynamics. We then defined and studied the vulnerability of the coast on...

The Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon Archipelago (France) is located in the NW Atlantic Ocean, proximal to the Cabot Straight outlet of the Gulf of Saint-Lawrence, and 50 km south of Newfoundland (Canada). The Miquelon-Langlade Barrier is a 12-km-long, 100-2500-m-wide, north-south oriented isthmus connecting two bedrock islands (Miquelon to the north; Lang...

The Languedoc-Roussillon coastline is a large unit stretching out over 200 km of sandy low coast in a wave dominated environment. The nearshore is characterized by a quasi continuous system of double sandbar that displays a wide range of typology. The interannual sandbar dynamic was investigated using 2D bathymetric profiles and 3D LiDAR imagery. T...

The wave-dominated beach barrier of Villeneuve-Lès-Maguelone extends between Palavas and Frontignan (Gulf of Lions, northernmost Mediterranean Sea), along a slightly natural sandy protected area characterized by typical and well-expressed morphologies. In the nearshore, the sea bottom shows one or two approximately rectilinear sand bars. In 2010-20...

Le lido de Villeneuve-lès-Maguelone (Languedoc-Roussillon) est un archétype de littoral microtidal, dominé par la houle, en érosion, et largement affecté par la submersion marine lors des tempêtes. Les observations réalisées dans le cadre du Système d'Observation Littoral - Trait de Côte (SO LTC) concernent l'hydrodynamique et le transport sédiment...

In a context of climate change, we will present the methodology of the modeling approach to analyze the sensitivity of a Mediterranean beach to forcing conditions changes. This paper discusses the abilities of numerical models to predict the nearshore evolution and to set-up vulnerability indicators of sandy beaches against the climate change predi...

This work aims to investigate the processes responsible for the morphodynamics of barred beach during storm events. The contribution compares the response of 2 nearshore bars during storm events at a microtidal double barred beach of the Gulf of Lions, NW Mediterranean Sea (France). Storm-specific experiments were undertaken to assess the morpholog...

Nearshore bars are generally present on sandy coasts and play a significant role in wave breaking and sediment exchange between beach and shoreface. The study area is located on the Languedoc-Roussillon coast in the Gulf of Lions (southern part of the French Mediterranean coast). This microtidal environment is classified as a wave-dominated coast....

The south part nearshore zone of the Gulf of Lions coast (Mediterranean Sea) is characterized by a double crescentic sandbar system. During the winter 2007, a campaign of intensive hydrodynamical measurements (current profiles) was realized. During this campaign, based mainly on ADCPs, the maximal recorded wave height was 1.5 m. Four events were ob...

La Ville de Hyères dans le Var procède chaque année au rechargement de la plage située au Sud du Port de La Capte. Chaque année, sous l'impact des premières houles de tempêtes automnales, le cordon littoral disparaît quasiment. La commune souhaitait donc pérenniser cette plage en réalisant un rechargement accompagné de la mise en place d'atténuateu...

A field campaign of two months took place during winter 2008-2009 in Sete (Languedoc-Roussillon) to improve the understanding of hydrodynamic processes that control the straight bars in microtidal environment. It turns out that there are a large number of configurations of current speeds in the whole of the water column in connection with the meteo...

L'action des tempetes marines entraine souvent des reponses morphologiques rapides et des impacts importants sur les littoraux sableux : recul du trait de cote, submersion et erosion de la plage, franchissements et destruction des systemes dunaires et parfois de l'ensemble du cordon littoral, mais provoque egalement une importante dynamique des bar...

Résumé : Le golfe du lion est caractérisé par la présence d'un vaste ensemble de barres sédimentaires présentes sur l'avant-côte jusqu'à des profondeurs de -8 m CM. Un premier inventaire régional de ces morphologies basé sur l'analyse planimétrique de photos aériennes a montré la diversité des configurations de barres (BARUSSEAU & SAINT-GUILY, 1981...

The observation of the cross-shore sediment displacement in the off-shore direction is one of the objectives of the repeated measurement campaigns that took place at the beach of Sète, Gulf of Lion (NW Mediterranean Sea). The site has been instrumented in 1999, 2000 and more recently in 2009 using wave recording current meters, pressure sensor arra...

Swash bar development has been well documented from coasts with low to moderate tidal ranges, while studies of the effects of these forms on the morphology and dynamics of the adjacent shore in large tide range environments are rare. The analysis of sequential vertical aerial photographs was combined with field work in order to highlight the effect...

The morphodynamics of an intertidal bar located on an ebb delta of a megatidal inlet system in Normandy, France, was examined during four short experiments under low to high energy wave conditions and spring or neap tide contexts. Although there have been numerous studies on ebb-tidal bar morphology and on the processes affecting such bars, these c...

The Sète beach (Mediterranean Sea - France) is characterized by two nearshore bars which are generally considered to run parallel to the shore. However in-situ wave/current/bathymetry measurements have shown the possible reorganization of this double bar system during storms associated with oblique waves. Two situations are studied. During the fiel...

Threshold values for sediment resuspension and the displacement direction of the suspended sediment are evaluated at 2 beach locations along the coast of the Gulf of Lion (NW Mediterranean Sea). The westernmost measurement site (Leucate beach) was instrumented with bottom mounted ADCP and ADV in the depth range 3 - 8 m; the easternmost site (S

The purpose of this paper is to describe the morphodynamics of bars located on an ebb delta of a macrotidal inlet system. Although there have been numerous studies on the morphology and physical processes affecting such bars, these concern only microtidal and mesotidal settings. The west Cotentin coast (Normandy, France) is a fine example of a macr...

L’objectif de ce mémoire est de comprendre la formation et l’évolution des flèches sableuses et des tombolos à différentes échelles spatio-temporelles. Dans cette perspective, deux sites ont été choisis, la Pointe d’Agon (Normandie) et l’isthme de Miquelon-Langlade (Archipel de St Pierre et Miquelon). La Pointe d’Agon présente la particularité d’êt...

The Pointe d'Agon is a complex spit located on the west coast of the Cotentin (Normandy, France), evolving across the megatidal Regnéville inlet. This spit has on its distal part several well defined hooks. Using aerial photographs covering half a century makes it possible to monitor the formation of a new hook in a two stage process. The influence...

The study site concerns the largest inlet of the west coast of Cotentin Peninsula (English Channel), Regnéville inlet. This area located in megatidal environment is characterized by a complex spit (la Pointe d'Agon) which exhibits a particularly active morphology with eight well defined hooks. A series of aerial photographs spanning over a period o...

The purpose of this paper is to describ the morphology and attempt to understand the morphodynamics of bars located on an ebb delta close to an inlet mouth in a megatidal context. Although there have been numerous studies on the morphology and physical processes affecting such bars, these concern only microtidal and mesotidal settings. The west Cot...