Abstract
Coastal management around estuaries with highly morphological sandspits or barriers is one of the complex engineering tasks coastal researchers and engineers encounter. Insufficient studies or understanding of the morpho-dynamics of such areas results in poorly designed protection structures and hence exacerbating the existing problem being remedied. Therefore, this study aims at quantifying the sandspit growth and longshore sediment transport rates at the Bouche du Roi inlet in Benin, West Africa. The inlet has a constantly elongating updrift sandspit which results in narrowing and closure of the inlet. During rainy seasons, this poses flooding risks to surrounding communities. The study employed the use of remotely sensed images acquired from 1984 to 2020 to perform long-term analysis. Furthermore, the depth of closure and berm elevation for the study area were calculated using well known empirical formulas. Results from the sandspit analysis revealed an average updrift sandspit growth rate of about 700 m/year and an average longshore sediment transport rate of about 1.2 × 106 m3/year along the Bight of Benin. The results obtained from the method utilized in this study were similar to results from past studies in which different approaches were used.
