Coastal MD: program for calculating dimensionless parameters for the morphodynamic classification of sandy beaches

Beach Morphodynamic classification is an established theme in coastal geomorphology studies. The more comprehensive and referenced classification in scientific literature was developed on the beaches of southeastern Australia, from topographic profiles and aerial photographs, classifying beaches as reflected, dissipative or intermediate, according to the morphological characteristics of the beach. The morphodynamic classification model was also anchored in function of determined empirical parameters, involving aspects related to hydrodynamics and sedimentation. In this sense, different dimensionless parameters were used, developed since the late 1960s, to determine the morphodynamic classification of beaches, such as the surf similarity parameter (xi), the surf scale parameter (epsilon), the omega parameter (Omega), the Relative Tide Range parameter (RTR) and delta parameter (Delta). The calculation of each of these dimensionless parameters requires not only a expend of time, but also an effort to perform the mathematical calculation, even with computational resource. In this sense, this technical note aims to present the Coastal MD program, that proposes an automatization of calculations to determine the morphodynamic classification of the beaches, increasing the performance related to the processing of field or simulated data, quickly and accurately.