TABLE OF CONTENTS Scott L.Douglass
Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
University of South Alabama
Mobile, Alabama
Robert A.Nathan
Moffat & Nichol Engineers
Tampa, Florida
Jeffrey D.Malyszek
Moffat & Nichol Engineers
Tampa, Florida
Coastal and port engineering encompasses planning, design, and construction of projects to satisfy society s needs and concerns in the coastal environment, such as harbor and marina development, shore protection, beach nourishment, and other constructed systems in the coastal wave and tide environment.
Over time, the scope of this field of engineering has broadened from only navigation improvement and property protection to include recreational beaches and environmental considerations. It takes into account the environmental conditions unique to the coastal area, including wind, waves, tides, and sand movement. Thus, coastal engineering makes extensive use of the sciences of oceanography and coastal geomorphology as well as of geotechnical, environmental, structural, and hydraulic engineering principles.
Because of the nature of littoral drift, or longshore sand transport along the coasts, erosion caused by coastal engineering projects along adjacent shorelines, sometimes several miles away, has been a recurring problem. Tools for prediction and evaluation of such shoreline dynamics are continually improving but are still limited, in part because of nature s unpredictability. Hence, postconstruction monitoring of the response of nearby beaches is often a required component of coastal engineering projects.
The design level of risk in many coastal engineering projects may be higher than in other civil engineering disciplines because the price of more effective design is often not warranted.
The...
