Sixteen years of bathymetry and waves at San Diego beaches

TLDR

Sustained, quantitative observations of nearshore waves and sand levels are essential for testing beach evolution models, but comprehensive datasets are relatively rare. We document beach profiles and concurrent waves monitored at three southern California beaches during 2001‑2016. Quarterly cross‑shore transects (165 total) and monthly subaerial beach surveys were collected at sites with diverse substrates, spanning two El Niño winters and four nourishments, and linked to tide gauge and wave model data. The dataset provides raw sand elevations, gridded and interpolated maps with error estimates, beach widths and sand volumes, substrate and nourishment locations, tide gauge water levels, wave conditions, and periods of uniform bathymetry, enabling testing of one‑dimensional beach evolution models.

Abstract

Sustained, quantitative observations of nearshore waves and sand levels are essential for testing beach evolution models, but comprehensive datasets are relatively rare. We document beach profiles and concurrent waves monitored at three southern California beaches during 2001-2016. The beaches include offshore reefs, lagoon mouths, hard substrates, and cobble and sandy (medium-grained) sediments. The data span two energetic El Niño winters and four beach nourishments. Quarterly surveys of 165 total cross-shore transects (all sites) at 100 m alongshore spacing were made from the backbeach to 8 m depth. Monthly surveys of the subaerial beach were obtained at alongshore-oriented transects. The resulting dataset consists of (1) raw sand elevation data, (2) gridded elevations, (3) interpolated elevation maps with error estimates, (4) beach widths, subaerial and total sand volumes, (5) locations of hard substrate and beach nourishments, (6) water levels from a NOAA tide gauge (7) wave conditions from a buoy-driven regional wave model, and (8) time periods and reaches with alongshore uniform bathymetry, suitable for testing 1-dimensional beach profile change models.