Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 7
Review of International Practices
Abstract
Beach renourishment methods, magnitudes, design and evaluation
procedures differ greatly from one country to the next, and there are variations in
the level of research and available documentation. This Chapter provides a brief
review of international practices and summarises trends in various countries.
Since the early beach renourishment projects in the 1920s on the coast of the
United States, the technique has grown in popularity, becoming widely used for
improving recreational beaches and protecting against coastal erosion and flood-
ing. Beach renourishment has been widely applied in Western Europe, Australia
and the United States, and in the last two decades its use has increased throughout
the world. This review summarises some trends in various countries.
7.1 United States
The United States has had more beach renourishment projects than any other
country. Beach renourishment remains the most widely utilised method for coastal
protection. This is partly due to the fact that erosion has been prevalent, estimated
to be occurring on 90 % of US beaches (Leatherman
1988
). Reviews of national
and regional practices include Leonard et al. (
1990
), Trembanis et al. (
1999
), Finkl
et al. (
2006
), Campbell and Benedet (
2006
).
Although beach renourishment may have been used at San Pedro in southern
California as early as 1919 (Herron
1980
), the first well-documented project was
in 1922 near the site of the amusement park at Coney Island, New York (Sect.
soon became fashionable, and by 1991 over 640 km of beaches on the coastline
of the United States had been renourished at a total cost of about $US8 billion
(Davison et al.
1992
).
