Introduction - Beach Renourishment - page 2

wildlife. Beach renourishment (also termed replenishment, feeding, restoration,
recharge, reconstruction, or fill) is an increasingly used method of coastal man-
agement, mainly because it preserves the aesthetic and recreational values of pro-
tected beaches by replicating the protective characteristics of natural beach and
dune systems.
Beach renourishment is artificial in the sense that the sediment has been
brought to the shore by engineers. The term beach renourishment is appropriate
where an existing beach has been maintained or extended by deposition of suit-
able sediment. The term artificial beach should be restricted to situations where
there was previously no natural beach, as at Praia da Rocha in Portugal (Psuty
and Moreira 1990 ; Psuty et al. 1992 ). On some coasts artificial beaches have
been inserted along the shore in front of sea walls. On some coasts, notably in
Singapore and Malaysia, sediment has been deposited to form new land extend-
ing out from the natural coastline, and beaches may be formed along the seaward
boundary of such reclaimed land.
The use of beach renourishment as a standard method of coastal protection is a
fairly recent phenomenon. Some of the first documented projects were undertaken
in the early part of the 1900s in the United States, as at San Pedro in southern
California in 1919 (Herron 1980 ) and at Coney Island, New York in 1922. Since
then the use of beach renourishment has increased, particularly in the last three
decades, and has come into use in many other countries, becoming a globally
adopted practice.
The term renourishment is an expression preferred here as an alternative to
nourishment, on two counts. Firstly, beach renourishment is often an on-going
processes of periodic introductions of sediment to maintain a beach, rather than a
one-off construction. For example, on Upham Beach, Florida beach renourishment
has taken place to offset continuing erosion in 1975, 1980, 1986, 1991 and 2000
(Elko et al. 2005 ). Secondly renourishment reflects the fact that the artificial place-
ment of beach material is (re)nourishing a beach previously nourished naturally,
prior to erosion.
Several renourishment methods include those that add to the existing beach
sediment budget and those that recycle sediment within a beach or coastal system.
Renourishment methods can also be categorised according to the location on the
beach where renourishment material is placed. These include shoreface renourish-
ment where submerged nearshore bars are created (either to serve as a source of
sediment to be transported shoreward, or to dissipate wave energy), profile renour-
ishment (which can include the backshore dune), and beach renourishment where
sediment is placed mainly on the subaerial part of the beach. The latter method has
a visible effect that is readily perceived by beach users and residents, and is the
most widely used method of renourishment in the world (Finkl and Walker 2004 ).
Beach renourishment has been most common on marine beaches where the aim
has been to counter erosion and protect coastal property (Fig. 1.1 ). Beaches have
also been formed on the shores of some estuaries to provide recreational areas,
for example on the Elbe Estuary in Hamburg (Fig. 1.2 ), in Delaware Bay, United
States (Jackson et al. 2010 ) and beside the Thames at Tower Bridge in London.