East Harbor

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Figure 1. East Harbor, Massachusetts, Historical inlet location (a, left) and present-day culvert opening (b, right) (USACE, 1868; MassGIS, 2003) .

East Harbor is an example of a tidally-restricted estuary located north of Truro, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. The Harbor is connected to Cape Cod Bay by a 2.2 m2 area by 200-m long culvert leading to a poorly flushed marsh area which in turn empties into a lake and marsh system. The original inlet located at the north end of the estuary (Figure 1a) was closed by the construction of a dike in 1869. The motivation behind this closure was to reduce or eliminate the erosion occurring on the seaward side of East Harbor and later provided railroad access to Provincetown (USACE, 1868; NOAA, 2006) Tidal access to the estuary was relocated at the southern end of the estuary with a fixed culvert with dimensions 1.1 m by 2 m (Figure 1b). This closure significantly changed hydrodynamics of the system and sediment transport on Cape Cod Bay and within the estuary.

Model Setup

Table 1. Sediment transport and morphology parameters in the CMS

Parameter	Value
Formulation
Sediment Transport Formula
Bed Load Scaling Factor
Suspended Load Scaling Factor
Sediment Porosity
Bed Slope Coefficient
Morphologic Acceleration Factor
Total Load Adaptation Length Method
Adaptation Length

Validation

Discussion

• For a definition of the goodness of fit statistics see Goodness of fit statistics

References

• Watts, I. M., Rosati, J. D., Borelli, M. (2010) "Re-Establishing a Historical Inlet at East Harbor, Cape Cod" Coastal Sediments '11 Conference Proceedings, In Press
• Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (1868). “Provincetown Harbor, Massachusetts.” Annual Report of the Secretary of War: Appendix RS, 828-829.

---

Test Cases

Documentation Portal