A long-term pattern of erosion, especially in specific areas – ‘hot spots’ – along the whollyrnrenourished beach in Harrison County, Mississippi, prompts the need to periodically renourish the entirernbeach. A dominant characteristic of mainland beaches in Mississippi is their broad, flat, nearshorernplatforms, which are typified by well developed bar morphologies. Nearshore bar morphology inrnMississippi Sound has been broadly studied in the past, but it has not been compared to shoreline changernpatterns. This study focuses on the relationship between shoreline change and nearshore bar morphology.rnNearshore bar morphology in Harrison County has been categorized from aerial photographs from thern1970’s to the middle 1990’s. Bar types range from simple shore-parallel bars to multiple bar interfaces.rnBar morphology categories and change through time were classified along the shoreline at 50 m intervals;rnshoreline change was classified in 20 m intervals.rnCombined results suggest that highly eroding areas are associated with a dominance of multiple sets ofrntransverse bars indicative of a bimodal longshore sediment transport regime. Areas that show little shorelinernchange and/or accretion tend to have multiple sets of shore-parallel bars. The overall bar morphologyrnpatterns in Harrison County have remained nearly constant in the past twenty years, even with arnrenourishment taking place. This suggests that bar patterns are an inherent indicator of the dominantrnphysical conditions and a powerful tool in understanding the sediment transport regime at specific locations,rne.g. ‘hot spots’, along the shoreline.
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