Synonyms
Renourishment; Replenishment; Restoration
Definition
Beach nourishment is the artificial placement of sand on an eroded shore to stabilize the shoreline position and provide protection from shoreline retreat and coastal flooding. This multipurpose procedure provides coastal protection, habitat, and recreation sites in an attempt to mitigate coastal erosion hazards. Replacement of sand lost to erosion can take place naturally (e.g., by alongshore littoral transport or onshore sand movement) or artificially (e.g., by deposition of sediment dredged from offshore or mined inland).
History and procedures
The term beach nourishment came into general use after the first renourishment project in the United States at Coney Island in 1922 (Dornhelm, 1995). In engineering parlance, the terms beach (re)nourishment, beach replenishment, and beach restorationare often used more or less interchangeably in reference to the artificial (mechanical) placement of sand along an eroded stretch of...
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Bibliography
Dornhelm, R. B., 1995. The Coney Island public beach and boardwalk improvement of 1923. Shore and Beach, 63(1), 7–11.
Finkl, C. W., and Walker, H. J., 2002. Beach nourishment. In Chen, J., Hotta, K., Eisma, D., and Walker, J. (eds.), Engineered Coasts. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, pp. 1–22.
Finkl, C. W., and Walker, H. J., 2005. Beach nourishment. In Schwartz, M. (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Coastal Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, pp. 37–54.
Finkl, C. W., Khalil, S. M., and Andrews, J. L., 1997. Offshore sand sources for beach replenishment: Potential borrows on the continental shelf of the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Marine Georesources and Geotechnology, 15, 155–173.
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Finkl, C.W. (2013). Beach Nourishment (Replenishment). In: Bobrowsky, P.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Natural Hazards. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4399-4_23
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