The Beautiful Beach Is Gone, But Where?
By: Dr. Patricia Farrell
Tags: Lifestyle, Science, Beach, Environmental Issues, Engineering

The Beautiful Beach Is Gone, But Where?

Photo: P. A. Farrell©️

To go out with the setting sun on an empty beach is to truly embrace your solitude. — Jeanne Moreau

Beaches, the places we love to go to ward off stress, commune with nature, and connect with our world, are disappearing. No, Mother Nature isn’t solely responsible for taking the beaches away; developers, selfish homeowners, climate change, and inadequate engineering efforts are doing it, too. Why are the beaches eroding?

Mother Nature does her part in a natural process of waves pushing sand along the shore and upward in the waves' direction. A plow-like action swirls the sand to the beach and then in the parallel-wave direction toward the far end of beaches.

In Australia, homes built near the beach are now at risk of total loss as nature takes its course along with climate change and dramatically reshapes the beaches. It is a natural process, but too many people think holding back nature rather than doing anything about climate change is the way to go.

Coastal erosion is threatening other communities around the country, too; nearly 39,000 buildings around the Australian coast are at risk of accelerated erosion due to the effects of climate change, according to the government’s geoscience agency.

Hawaii has similar challenges for beach homes. Homeowners offered a solution that was to be temporary but wasn’t.

Two homeowners asked the state for permission to erect mounds of sandbags along the beach for protection. Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources agreed, with one key condition: The emergency measures would be temporary. Such shoreline structures can hasten beach erosion, and state officials were trying to ensure that didn’t happen. The homeowners had a few years to come up with long-term plans for their homes and remove the sandbags. Today, nearly 15 years later, the sandbags remain and the beach is largely gone. If members of the public want to reach the ocean, they must clamber over a makeshift seawall, covered by black and tan fabric and held together with rope, and past “No Trespassing” and “Danger” signs.

Beach erosion isn’t anything new, but how people have been trying to hold back the oceans and protect their beaches has been inventive but useless. How long has the erosion been noted by monitoring agencies?

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that between 80 and 90 percent of the sandy beaches along America’s coastlines have been eroding for decades. In many of these cases, individual beaches may be losing only a few inches per year, but in some cases the problem is much worse. The outer coast of Louisiana, which (is referred) to as “the erosion ‘hot spot’ of the U.S.,” is losing some 50 feet of beach every year.

Holding Back the Waves

The first president of the United States, George Washington, gave his consent to build a lighthouse at Montauk Point on Long Island. The project was to ensure ships coming to port in New York wouldn’t lose their way, and the structure was built 300 feet from the shoreline.

Time and tide truly wait for no one, and the years of wind, hurricanes, and the tides took their toll on the shoreline, moving the Atlantic Ocean closer and closer to the landmark. Frantic efforts to save it included work by the Army Corp. of Engineers who built a wall and unloaded huge boulders at the base; neither worked.

A Long Island resident began another project to save the lighthouse, terraces going up the side of the cliff. In 1976, the textile designer joined the effort with her plan of terraces, seagrasses, and sand, which proved beneficial for a time.

A few huge hurricanes damaged the work, and, once again, the Army Corp. has a plan for 15-ton boulders to protect the structure from falling into the bay below. The Atlantic may have the final say here, too.

Miami Beach, Florida, is 4' higher than sea level and has major concerns related to erosion and storms.

In 2014, the city completed a dune restoration enhancement project along the eastern portion of the city. The healthier and more robust dune system not only provides habitat for native species, but also provides critical storm surge and erosion control protection to the upland infrastructure.

The American Shore and Beach Preservation Association collects information worldwide on beach erosion and preventive measures. They conclude that there is no perfect solution because there are many causes of beach erosion such as dams, coastal land building projects, and loss of natural protective habitats such as wetlands and dunes.

Saving the Beach From the Waves

Photo: P. A. Farrell©️

Not all beaches will have a similar erosion impact because, again, it depends where they are located. But building seawalls to protect the land from erosion has been found to speed up the beach's erosion in front of the walls.

Groins are engineered structures, walls, or a series of posts, built perpendicularly to the coast, to catch some of this sand moving in the waves and currents — -as longshore drift. Longshore drift occurs as sand is moved along the beach, within the surf zone. It happens because waves approach the shore obliquely.

What other beach-saving systems have been designed to thwart Mother Nature’s endless wish to move the beach sand?

A new system of breakwaters that looks like a giant plastic snowflake. When strung together and anchored offshore like a traditional breakwater system, WhisprWave absorbs the energy of the waves without interrupting the movement of the sand.

This system holds back the forces of erosion is an offshore breakwater…installed about 200–300 feet from a beach, then it will slow down the movement of the incoming waves. With reduced water movement, there is a lower risk of beach erosion occurring.

Sandsaver is a method similar to a breakwater, but with openings that control both the volume and the wave action speed. Sand is retained in the water column longer and kept in a constant state of stasis on the beach by this action. A complete description of the process and benefits is here.

Photo: P. A. Farrell©️

Climate Change and Effect on Beaches

A recent study outlined the effects of climate change from increased water levels from ice melting to human habitation and greenhouse gases (GHG).

…we show that ambient trends in shoreline dynamics, combined with coastal recession driven by sea level rise, could result in the near extinction of almost half of the world’s sandy beaches by the end of the century. While shoreline change can be the combined result of a wide range of potentially erosive or accretive factors, there is a clear cause and effect relationship between increasing sea levels and shoreline retreat, pointing to increased coastal erosion issues. Climate change will also affect waves and storm surges, which are important drivers of coastal morphology.

No database currently exists for accurately assessing the world’s sandy beaches, and, therefore, projections on the loss of beaches is problematic.

The researchers point out in their study that several countries could face extensive sandy beach erosion issues by the end of the twenty-first century (affecting >60% of their sandy coastline…), including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gambia, Jersey, Suriname, Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Pakistan and Mayotte (France).

Where will the future’s sandy beaches lie? Perhaps in manufactured playgrounds of the rich and famous or, if we get a grip on climate change, exactly where they are now.