coastal engineering

coastal engineering [′kōs·təl en·jə′nir·iŋ]

(civil engineering)

A branch of civil engineering pertaining to the study of the action of the seas on shorelines and to the design of structures to protect against this action.

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Coastal engineering

A branch of civil engineering concerned with the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of works in the coastal zone. The purposes of these works include control of shoreline erosion; development of navigation channels and harbors; defense against flooding caused by storms, tides, and seismically generated waves (tsunamis); development of coastal recreation; and control of pollution in nearshore waters. Coastal engineering usually involves the construction of structures or the transport and possible stabilization of sand and other coastal sediments.

The successful coastal engineer must have a working knowledge of oceanography and meteorology, hydrodynamics, geomorphology and soil mechanics, statistics, and structural mechanics. Tools that support coastal engineering design include analytical theories of wave motion, wave-structure interaction, diffusion in a turbulent flow field, and so on; numerical and physical hydraulic models; basic experiments in wave and current flumes; and field measurements of basic processes such as beach profile response to wave attack, and the construction of works. Postconstruction monitoring efforts at coastal projects have also contributed greatly to improved design practice.

Coastal structures can be classified by the function they serve and by their structural features. Primary functional classes include seawalls, revetments, and bulkheads; groins; jetties; breakwaters; and a group of miscellaneous structures including piers, submerged pipelines, and various harbor and marina structures.

Seawalls, revetments, and bulkheads are structures constructed parallel or nearly parallel to the shoreline at the land-sea interface for the purpose of maintaining the shoreline in an advanced position and preventing further shoreline recession. Seawalls are usually massive and rigid, while a revetment is an armoring of the beach face with stone rip-rap or artificial units. A bulkhead acts primarily as a land-retaining structure and is found in a more protected environment such as a navigation channel or marina. See Revetment

A groin is a structure built perpendicular to the shore and usually extending out through the surf zone under normal wave and surge-level conditions. It functions by trapping sand from the alongshore transport system to widen and protect a beach or by retaining artificially placed sand.

Jetties are structures built at the entrance to a river or tidal inlet to stabilize the entrance as well as to protect vessels navigating the entrance channel.

The primary purpose of a breakwater is to protect a shoreline or harbor anchorage area from wave attack. Breakwaters may be located completely offshore and oriented approximately parallel to shore, or they may be oblique and connected to the shore where they often take on some of the functions of a jetty.