Abstract
<jats:p>This report documents a numerical modeling investigation on the sediment transport and morphology changes surrounding designed marine habitats for seabirds in Hampton Roads, Virginia. It assembles and analyzes historical and newly collected wave and hydrodynamic data from the study area. The datasets are used to calibrate and validate coastal wave, hydrodynamic, and sediment transport models. It describes developments of model alternatives that correspond to different bird island designs. It evaluates current and sediment transport fields and seabed volume changes around the island under a representative normal year (2020) and under a storm simulation condition for a 50 yr return synthetic storm with corresponding sea level rise. Model simulations show weak current and sediment transport fields prior to the island construction. With alternative designs of the island, model results show significant changes in magnitudes and spatial distributions of current and sediment transport rate. Analysis of model bed volume changes demonstrates different erosion and deposition trends under the normal environment and under the storm simulation condition. The island design and configuration, including island orientation, island slopes, and material coverage, respond differently to the impact of physical forcing ap-plied in the modeling.</jats:p>