Approaches to Understanding Multiple-Inlet Stability

The morphologic response of inlets that are part of a multiple inlet system, defined here as two or more coastal inlets connected to the same bay, is a complex problem. It has been thought that one inlet will eventually dominate, and that other inlets will close. Of course, in nature, there is a full range of situations and physical realities that complicate this situation. As more experience and historical information become available, various approaches can be tested. There may be multiple inlet systems serving a bay region that have naturally developed and coexisted for many years in some cases or there maybe newly developed multiple inlet systems whose inlets immediately respond to each other, with the more efficient inlet creating a decline in the size of the other inlet, probably at a varying rate proportional to their efficiencies. An example of this type situation at two inlets on the Guatemalan coast is examined in this paper.