Beach Erosion essays

Beach Erosion essays 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. Gravel is removed in large volumes for commercial purposes each year. More than 20 million tons were dredged in 1989 alone (Dredging Operations). Removal of this gravel was thought to be a good method because no extra quarries had to open. The problem facing the shoreline is removing all this sand which leads to the gradual wearing away of shores and cliffs. This adds to coastal erosion. Whenever large amounts of material, such as sand are removed from the seabed, the directions of currents move more material back into the dredged area. This dredged area will be replenished with material, and this material will be taken from elsewhere along the coastline. This whole process is a continual process that causes ero ...