English Summary
A good knowledge of
wave climate is needed to address coastal erosion problems and to design
maritime infrastructures. However, few wave time-series exist for most of the
Nunavik coasts. This project will measure waves, currents and ice thickness
during three years off Kuujjuarapik/Whapmagoostui and Quaqtaq. For each
village, a mooring will be installed on the sea bed at 30 m water depth from
summer 2017 to summer 2020. These moorings are composed of an anti-trawl
structure, an AWAC measuring waves, currents and ice-thickness, a tide gage,
and an acoustic release for recovering the mooring. The moorings will be
serviced every year. Deployment and recovery of the moorings will be conducted
with local fishing boats and their crews: the Umiujaq fishing boat for the
Kuujjuarapik/Whapmagoostui mooring and the Quaqtaq fishing boat for the Quaqtaq
mooring.
Smaller moorings with
just a pressure sensor will be deployed once in 5-10 m water depth closer to
the shoreline for 3 months (July-September) in 2017 or 2018. There will be two
small moorings at Kuujjuarapik/Whapmagoostui and one small mooring at Quaqtaq.
They will be deployed at the same time as the larger moorings with the fishing
boat, and they will be recovered using a small boat rented locally.
The project also
includes numerical wave modelling to reproduce wave propagation in the coastal
areas, to analyse wave energy reaching the different shoreline sections and to
evaluate the impact of future climate changes on wave conditions. Accurate wave
modelling requires detailed local bathymetry data, because bathymetry
influences wave trajectory and energy dissipation.
Therefore, new
bathymetric data will also be collected near Kuujjuarapik/ Whapmagoostui and
Quaqtaq in July-August 2017 by the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Développement
en Cartographie des Océans (CIDCO) to support the wave modelling. The bathymetric
surveys will be carried out with an autonomous singlebeam echosounder
(Hydroball) towed by small boats that will be rented locally with their pilots.
At Kuujjuarapik/Whapmagoostui, 80 km2 will be mapped with a survey line spacing
between 25 m and 200 m; at Quaqtaq, 15 km2 with a line spacing between 25 m and
100 m. Both surveys together are expected to take 17 days.
The project will be
carried out by the Institut des sciences de la mer de Rimouski (ISMER,
Université du Québec à Rimouski). It is funded by the Transport Ministry of
Quebec (Ministère des Transports, de la Mobilité durable et de
l'Électrification des tranports).
Objectives
The objectives of the
project are to:
1) Measure new
wave data at Kuujjuarapik/Whapmagoostui and Quaqtaq during 3 years; these will
be the first multiannual wave time series for these locations;
2) Survey new
bathymetric data at Kuujjuarapik/Whapmagoostui and Quaqtaq to improve the depth
grid of numerical models;
3) Implement a
numerical wave model for Kuujjuarapik/Whapmagoostui and Quaqtaq, and use it to evaluate
different scenarios (extreme storms, sea ice reduction, and sea level
variation) in order to estimate the impact of future climate changes.
