water Article Beach Response to Wave Forcing from Event to Inter-Annual Time Scales at Grand Popo, Benin (Gulf of Guinea) Grégoire Abessolo Ondoa 1,2,*, Frédéric Bonou 2,3,4, Folly Serge Tomety 2,3,4, Yves du Penhoat 2,3,4, Clément Perret 2,3,4, Cossi Georges Epiphane Degbe 3 and Rafael Almar 2 1 Fishery Resources Laboratory, University of Douala, BP 2701 Douala, Cameroon 2 LEGOS (Université Paul Sabatier de Toulouse/CNRS/CNES/IRD), 31400 Toulouse, France;
[email protected] (F.B.);
[email protected] (F.S.T.);
[email protected] (Y.d.P.);
[email protected] (C.P.);
[email protected] (R.A.) 3 Institut de Recherches Halieutiques et Océanologiques du Bénin, 03 BP 1665 Cotonou, Benin;
[email protected] 4 International Chair in Mathematical Physics and Applications/Unesco Chair, University of Abomey-Calavi, 01 BP 526 Cotonou, Benin * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +237-699-76-73-34 Received: 31 March 2017; Accepted: 16 June 2017; Published: 21 June 2017 Abstract: This paper assesses the morphological storm-event impact, seasonal cycles, trends of wave forcing, and beach’s response at the coastal area of Grand Popo, Benin. Three and a half years’ worth of data were collected from 2013 to 2016, using a video system calibrated with field data collected during a 10 day experiment. A comparison was carried out with Wavewatch III IOWAGA wave hindcast data. The along-shore-averaged shoreline position exhibited a seasonal pattern, which was related more to the average wave height than the average storm intensity.