Feasibility of a Marina port along the Buenos Aires coast, Argentina

This study was completed to determine which location along the Buenos Aires coast is better suited for the development of a Marina port, taking into account physical, environmental and economic features.A literature review related to port development, dimensioning, and port/coast interaction was completed. It was defined that the most relevant criteria to select a location were the water depths near shore, longshore transport rates, and the impact on the adjacent coast. Following this section, the preliminary port dimensions were defined based on the Unified Facilities Criteria (2009), and the California department of boating and waterways (2005).Each initially feasible location was selected based on the information obtained from the literature study, the expertise of the people involved in the project in Argentina, and the two week visit to the Buenos Aires coast.The reviewed literature provided some insight on the morphology and dynamics of the coast, although the reliability of the different studies was limited in many cases. Near-shore wave values were almost non-existent along the coast, and only a few studies had a more thorough methodology to estimate waves, longshore transport rates and coastline change.In this thesis study Delft3D-WAVE model was implemented, forced by offshore wave/wind data from the NOAA Wave Watch data base, including 18 offshore wave/wind points used as spatially varying boundary conditions. The bathymetry of the area was built based on the nautical charts obtained from Servicio de Hidrografia Naval (2012), and the GEBCO (2008) global bathymetry. The NOAA wave and wind data was classified in 125 scenarios by using ORCA tools.To show the results of the wave model, each scenario was plotted showing the distribution of the significant wave height, and the peak wave period. Added to that, 36 near-shore wave roses were created at the 7m water depth contour, covering the coast of Buenos Aires province. A strong dominance of south storms was found, it was also concluded that the coast further north had a weaker wave climate and consequently smaller transport rates, mainly due to energy dissipation induced by bottom friction of the extensive shallow areas near the north section of the coast.By using the calculated near-shore wave climate; longshore transport rates, and coastline changes along the coast were calculated by implementing UNIBEST-CL+. The sediment properties as the D10, D50 and D90 used for the model were derived from the samples extracted during the field visit in Argentina that were later measured at the TU-Delft Geoscience laboratory. The calculated longshore transport rates showed a good agreement when compared to the values obtained by Van Rijn, L.C. (2008) and Scalise, A.H., Schnack, E.J. (2007).After implementing the wave and coastline models, an evaluation of the locations was completed. All the locations were compared by using a multi-criteria table, and it was concluded that Pinamar was the most promising location, since it provided moderate waves and longshore transport rates, short distance from the shore to the required depths, and existing infrastructure to accommodate and entertain the different marina users.Different layout alternatives were derived and compared; for the selected alternative, extra insight was provided, estimating the dredging volumes, and proposing coastal protection structures.