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Beach Nourishment and Protection (1995) / Chapter Skim
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2 Management Strategies for Shore Protection
Pages 27-57

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From page 27...
... THE DECISION PROCESS Each beach nourishment or other shore protection program begins in a beachfront community that perceives a problem. The loss of a recreational beach, damage to private buildings or public facilities, flooding, or loss of tax revenues can all be symptoms that shoreline changes are affecting the utility, safety, or social or economic well-being of a community.
From page 28...
... Reestablishing a beach that provides recreational opportunity as well as shore protection from storm damage is becoming the management option preferred by many communities. Abandonment was the choice in some locations following the 1962 Ash Wednesday storm that caused extreme damage to many Atlantic coast communities (New Jersey State Highway Department, 1962; Shore and Beach, 1962a,b,c)
From page 29...
... Public support is also important with respect to the authorization and funding of federal cost sharing for shore protection works. Significant debate is often associated with public discussion of beach nourishment as a shore protection measure.
From page 30...
... l~i~ ~^#~ ~~=c~# 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 B ~ l h l l l l l l l l E ~ ~ l o l l l l l l l F o I l o w I l ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I l n I l l l l l l l ~ l l l l ~ l A ~ ~ e ~ g ~ e l l l l l ~ l I l s I a n d l l l l l l l ~ l ~ l l l l l s~s:s:s:s~s:s:s:s:s:ssisisissss:s:s~ssissss:s:ssissssss:s:ssissss:s:sss:s:sss:s:s:s~s:sssssssssss:s~sss:s:s:s~ssiss:s:s:sssssss:s:sss:s:s:sssss~s:s~sss:s~sss~s:s:s:s:s:sss::::~::::s~sss~s:::::ss::~s~::::s~sss~s:::::s~s:~:s~s:::::s~s:::s~s:::s~s:::: sou~em H~yland and Virginia ~at ~as created ~ben an inlet ~ed during a bu~c~e in 1933. Public respoDse to tbe complex Ocean Chy, H=ylandAssateague Island sand-sb~ing reladonship and erosion problems set in motion a series of events tbat culminated in an ongoing m~or beacb nourishment program and con~oversy over dghts to use sand hom tbe Ocean City Inlet ebb hde sboa1 (Box 2-1~.
From page 31...
... Rather than fault past decisions, those made today with respect to shore protection are likely to affect and constrain the hazard mitigation responses of shorefront communities for decades and thus must be understood in that context. Faced with a diminished beach and declining demand for rental units and commercial establishments, beachfront communities may perceive beach nourishment projects as a means to reverse declining local economic trends associated with a decline in recreational activity.
From page 32...
... PROJECT FORMULATION AND DESIGN Once a program of beach nourishment is selected as the primary approach to shore protection, the process of creating a project- the first element of the program begins. The local sponsor (designated in the reconnaissance study phase, as described above)
From page 33...
... MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR SHORE PROTECTION 33 FIGURE 2-1 Ocean City Inlet, Maryland, ebb-tide shoal. Photograph by Steve Underwood.
From page 34...
... Part of the controversy associated with beach nourishment projects is related to public perceptions about the value of beach nourishment as a shore protection measure. These perceptions vary and, as will be shown later, may or may not correlate with scientific data and engineering principles.
From page 35...
... Although the sources of information are secondary and largely governmental, it is believed that public representatives and officials could, based on their public involvement experiences, provide reasonable, if not complete, indications of public understanding. Responses to the questions suggest that the interested and affected publics
From page 36...
... Lack of public understanding was indicated for three economic factors that could potentially affect long-term support for beach nourishment projects, depending on how they ultimately affect property owners and business: there might be an intensification of shore development, - there is potential for broadly applied and selective increases in property taxes to help defray the costs of beach nourishment, and - there could be an increase in property taxes as a result of increased property values. · A second area in which public understanding could be improved is in the awareness of visible performance of beach nourishment projects.
From page 37...
... Again, if public expectations do not include this delay, the project may be viewed as a failure. Beach nourishment projects that require local participation in the costs benefit from public participation in that local, state, and federal officials discuss not only bond bills, beach-use tax, hotel-room tax, and other taxes to fund the sponsor's part of the costs but also beach access and other issues as the studies progress.
From page 38...
... This would lead to a broader recognition of the uniqueness of each beach fill initiative by establishing the criteria for judging a specific project or program. Most important, however, the public needs to learn about the concepts inherent in a shore protection program in order to understand its continuing requirements.
From page 39...
... Shore protection projects were constructed on the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore in Indiana, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina, Perdido Key in Florida, and Assateague Island in Maryland. Laws and regulations governing the protection of the environment, water quality, and endangered species all have significant impacts on beach nourishment projects.
From page 40...
... Severity and Frequency of Storms There is a basic underlying variability in weather and the resulting wave conditions. This necessitates a statistical approach to design and economic analysis of beach renourishment projects.
From page 41...
... Beach nourishment projects" or programsrun some risk of failure, largely because of the uncertainties described above. There are no guaranteed solutions to wave damage and flooding for any structures built near the ocean's edge.
From page 42...
... Sufficient sand, gravel, or cobbles remaining in a configuration suitable to block or dissipate wave energy prior to its striking facilities. Protection possibly including hard structures in the solution.
From page 43...
... Although such concerns are not unique to beach nourishment projects, the appropriateness of cost-sharing arrangements associated with nourishment projects in which there is federal involvement is an important policy issue. A recent (1995)
From page 44...
... The proposal would also increase funding for planning assistance to states, beneficial uses of dredged material, and programs to improve the environment, all of which could be used on some facet of shore protection problems. One way to reconsider the cost-sharing arrangement is to determine the distribution of benefits of nourishing an eroding beach and to set cost-sharing
From page 45...
... For example, a project may cost $20 million to construct and provide $20 million in storm damage reduction benefits but may also result in $50 million in other economic benefits. The issue to be examined is whether the total distribution of benefits realized from a nourishment project should be the basis for determining the cost-sharing partnership ratio.
From page 46...
... However, as beachquality material from upland sources, federal waters beyond state jurisdiction, or foreign sources is required over time to maintain nourishment programs, programs will likely incur increasing resource costs. The obvious benefits from beach nourishment projects and the ones currently allowed when federal participation is planned are storm damage reduction and recreational benefits (by current policy, if at least 50 percent of the project costs are covered by storm damage reduction benefits, the remaining benefits may be recreational benefits)
From page 47...
... There are potentially other, less obvious costs and benefits from beach nourishment projects. At one time, labels such as "indirect" or "secondary" were given to these other effects, but these distinctions are not at all clear.
From page 48...
... Additionally, care must be taken to avoid double counting. For example, estimates of recreational benefits based on established empirical methodologies are likely to capture the recreational benefits accruing to adjacent property owners as well as to visitors to the area, but a recreational component of benefits will also be captured in the change in adjacent property values.
From page 49...
... A more reasonable approach may be to encourage localities to develop rational land-use management plans and require that all public actions, including beach nourishment projects, be consistent with these plans. Some states are further along in developing such plans than others.
From page 50...
... Information about projected costs and benefits should include as much about the underlying probability distributions as possible, certainly not just the means of those distributions, in order to reduce the level of uncertainty in costbenefit analyses. As explained elsewhere in this report, a beach nourishment program incorporates a series of beach renourishment projects over a long time horizon or life cycle of a program.
From page 51...
... . Both storm damage reduction and recreational use are public goods generated by beach nourishment projects.
From page 52...
... Likewise, financing schemes that require contributions from local property owners based on increased property values may affect the amount and type of private investment. Pricing schemes that require property owners or investors to share liability for storm damage or renourishment projects may alter long-term liability costs.
From page 53...
... Purpose of Beach Replenishment The problem of shore protection being addressed by sand replenishment is created by the presence of shorefront property and infrastructure on an eroding beach. Replenishment in a developed area, whether for storm damage reduction or improvement Of a recreational beach, would not be required in the absence of buildings or if the buildings were moved back from the retreating shoreline.
From page 54...
... A useful though not precise measure of predicted beach life span is the nourishment interval the assumed time between nourishment operations that are required to replace erosion losses and to bring the beach back to its design width. In recent Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast beach nourishment projects, replenished interval estimates have ranged from 2 years (Sandbridge, Virginia)
From page 55...
... Even when shore protection benefits are achieved, economic benefits may or may not occur as projected. In some cases, a beach fill may be only partially successful with respect to planned physical performance but may nevertheless stimulate considerable economic activity.
From page 56...
... 1993. An emergency remedial beach fill design for Ocean City, Maryland.
From page 57...
... 1994. Shoreline Protection and Beach Nourishment Projects of the U.S.


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