The Coastline Evolution Model (CEM)

The Coastline Evolution Model (or CEM) is a one-contour line model that focuses on sandy, wave-dominated shoreline evolution, simulating the plan-view evolution of a coastline due to gradients in alongshore sediment transport. A unique aspect of CEM is its ability to process an arbitrarily sinuous shoreline by dividing the plan-view domain into a 2-dimensional cell array, allowing the simulation of complex shoreline features including spits and capes. The model is exploratory in nature, designed to simulate large-scale ($10^3$ to $10^6$ m) and long-term ($10^2$ to $10^5$ yr) shoreline evolution.

Build and install CEM

CEM can be built from source on Linux, macOS, and Windows with a C compiler and CMake. Instructions are given below.

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Note:

A convenient way to gather dependencies and build CEM is with a virtual environment set up through the conda package manager. Create a conda environment with the included environment file:

conda env create --file environment.yml

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To build CEM from source with CMake, run

cmake -B _build --fresh
cmake --build _build

The compiled model files live in the directory _build.

Run the tests with

ctest -V --test-dir _build

Install the model with

cmake --install _build --prefix PATH-TO-INSTALLATION

where PATH-TO-INSTALLATION is the base directory in which to install the model (/usr/local is the default). CEM is self-contained, so installing to a local directory, e.g., _install, is a convenient option.

Run the model with

./_install/bin/cem --help