Beach Erosion

A detailed Summary of Beach Erosion

For many decades the approach to rapid coastal erosion was to build up sea defenses, to try and slow down or even stop the erosion. Initially the attempts were thought a success, however after some years it was realized that the power of the sea and waves could overcome human attempts. Only could protection be a success if huge costs were going to be involved. Many methods around the world have taken place in he last 50 years with many failures occurring. It is very rare to find a coastline that shows a decrease in the rate of erosion over many years after defenses are in place. In fact in some places, these defenses seem to have speeded up the erosion process. Coastal erosion is a natural process of erosion, transportation, and deposition, and interfering with this balance could be to blame for the rise in erosion on the coasts of some areas.

Seawalls have been built out to sea in many areas of the coastline. Their aim is to trap material and thus slow down the rate of long-shore drift. However, these seawalls in some areas have been blamed for the rise in erosion rates further down the coast.

Gravel extraction occurs in many offshore areas around the world. Gr

In some cases coastal erosion has been made worse because of human intervention. In the years when new methods were being experimented with, many people didn't realize that in fact they were making the situation worse. Still these methods were carried out. Only has it been in the last 10 years that we have started to learn more and more about the coastal system. Today we have realized that in fact most of the methods we try are in fact causing more damage than good. We now understand that protecting one particular area will almost certainly lead to the putting another at risk. The good news is that now the government is only protecting valuable areas that are under threat, and are refusing to give new licenses to dredge material from offshore (Factsheet). This is also being accompanied by a new attitude towards coastal erosion of managed retreat. With sea levels expected to rise in the future, and the coast slowly subsiding into the sea this new method involves construction retreating from the coast. Meaning no new buildings are to be constructed unless they are a certain distance from the coastline. Also sea defenses will be moved inland to higher ground, to compensate for the rising sea levels. There may be people who oppose this idea like homeowners and realtors on the coasts, but even to compensate them will mean still saving millions of dollars every year. In normal circumstances, no one ever receives

Some common words found in the essay are:
Umpqua Watersheds, Cause Effect, Operations Removal, coastal erosion, rate erosion, rate long-shore drift, upper cliff, rise erosion, long-shore drift, erosion rates, rate long-shore, coastline decrease, sea levels, friction layers,

Approximate Word count = 954
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Science