Sand replenishment projects are a mixed bag in terms of success. Photo: Surfrider
When San Clemente’s Measure BB failed to pass by less than 3 percent of the vote, I began to wonder: what are the pros and cons of sand replenishment on surfing? Measure BB was a ballot initiative that proposed a half-cent sales tax increase to fund sand replenishment for various beaches, battle coastline erosion, and maintain the Beach Trail and pier. Since research points to almost 70 percent of California’s beaches disappearing by 2100, surely there must be reasons people oppose sand replenishment besides the minute change to their sales tax.
To seek answers, I reached out to San Diego Surfrider Executive Committee member Tom Cook. Tom is a researcher with an MS in Physical Oceanography with over 20 years of experience in coastal ocean current and wave observations. He’s been involved with Surfrider since the late 1990s, starting with revitalizing the South Florida (now Miami) chapter to address beach litter and coastal erosion. After moving to San Diego in the mid-2000s, he co-chaired the Beach Preservation Committee and led efforts like Surf Spot monitoring during SANDAG’s 2012 Regional Beach Sand Project II.
My first question for Cook was simply: what are the pros and cons of sand replenishment as it pertains to surfers? Without beating around the bush, Cook said, “traditional coastal management practices are rarely aligned with surfing interests. Although economic studies have shown the positive impacts of quality surf spots to a region’s economy, it often requires groups of concerned citizens to examine the impacts of coastal protection projects on surf spots (support your local Surfrider Foundation chapter)!”
“Traditional coastal management practices are reliant on hard stabilization techniques,” Cook continued, “which include hard structures like sea walls and groins.” For example, recently, Ocean Beach, San Francisco was scheduled to receive a new sea wall, which surfers are strongly opposing. These structures have been shown, in some cases, “to exacerbate erosion and may completely ruin a surf spot, like Killer Dana,” according to Cook. However, the flip side of this is that many iconic surf spots are actually the side effect of implementing these hard structures (think: Sebastian Inlet and the Wedge).
For San Clemente’s measure BB, the project on tap was beach nourishment, or “dredge and fill” which Cook explained is “a soft engineering technique for shoreline stabilization that places local sources of beach quality sand on eroded beaches and has increasingly been seen as the main tool of regional coastal management, and the volume of sand placed for beach nourishment projects has risen exponentially.”
For beach nourishment to be effective, the process of dredging and filling sand must occur on a regular basis using sediment that matches the grain size for that beach. “The major concern for project design is to maximize beach width, and rarely do designers consider the impact to adjacent surf spots,” Cook said. “Even though there are some negatives associated with the practice, beach nourishment is here to stay and is often a major component of the living shoreline.”
Cook reminded me that the effects of beach nourishment are “largely anecdotal,” as factors like longshore currents, wave height, and direction make it difficult for engineering models to predict nourishment outcomes accurately. Additionally, tracking the movement of added sand, whether it forms sandbars or drifts offshore, remains poorly understood.
The biggest downside of sand replenishment for surfers, however, is the changing of the wave shape. Cook said, “whether you surf a beach, reef or point break, the beach fill will eventually make it into the surf zone.” Filling the beach changes the beach profile, and therefore how the wave breaks, introducing more closeouts.
San Clemente’s T-Street, for example, is unique in that it’s a beachbreak with rock reefs. Cook explained that “the shelves cause different spots to break differently depending on swell angle and direction. If sand fills in around rock reefs surrounding the spot, it could transform the break into more of a beach break and change the ride length and speed.”
There are some upsides, however. For one, Cook offered that “a good swell may hit a surf spot adjacent to a recently nourished beach and produce good waves, and if the stars align and angle and period are right, you may see a mini Superbank at your local beachbreak.” Similarly, along the edges of active nourishment sites can offer great surf as the project is going on. Also, some areas that are nourishing beaches place sand on sandbars as opposed to the dry beaches, which supports the sandbars and therefore the waves that break there.
At the end of the day, though, unfortunately, “since sand transport increases during larger surf, the pros of beach nourishment are often short lived. As the swell moves the newly placed sand, the next swell may not break with the same quality, and eventually the surf spot will move to an equilibrium state,” Cook explained.
So, when do surfers actually feel the effects of adding sand? According to Cook, most effects of beach replenishment are immediate. When the focus is on maximizing beach width, surfers are often left with an increased shorebreak, which, “depending on the swell… could change in the course of hours,” Cook said, adding that when storms hit, this changes the trajectory of sand redistribution and “longer lasting effects may be seen after a few storms.”
So, what are the viable solutions that save surf spots and allow species to thrive as opposed to becoming threatened by change? As far as saving surf spots, Cook offered that “artificial reefs have been championed as a coastal protection that could provide surf spot and habitat for nearshore species.” But they come with their own set of challenges. Due to the size of a natural surfing reef being so large, they are “difficult and costly to replicate, and many of the artificial reefs were too small to create a viable surf spot.”
Now, Cook is potentially looking to solutions such as shore face nourishment, which “places beach fill seaside of existing sandbars” as well as modern sand bypass systems, such as the Tweed River system that created the Gold Coast’s Superbank.
All in all, “regional management approaches are best,” Cook said, specifying that San Diego, for example, has long-running monitoring projects and working groups consisting of politicians, scientists, engineers and other stakeholders that study what works for their particular region.
“Smaller, more frequent projects may improve the longevity of these projects, but ultimately with rising sea level and more intense storms, we are battling a behemoth,” Cook admitted. “Ultimately, we must start pushing for managed retreat of public infrastructure and stop subsidizing at-risk private dwellings through insurance programs.”
Equally important to the logistics of the management is the community’s involvement with the management. For example, Malibu is a complicated surf spot because it is affected by natural processes including the lagoon flow but also by unnatural processes like coastal development. I brought it up to Cook as its projects to improve the lagoon have been criticized by surfers for changing the wave. “Unfortunately, there are no solutions I know of that can improve a wave that has been altered by a beach nourishment project,” Cook told me. “This is why it’s important for a concerned surfer to identify their shoreline management agency, attend their meetings and understand their policies. Many of these agencies are open to public comment, and value the input of their stakeholders.”
Cook also said that “it is possible for the public to have a say in these projects. Find out what local groups follow projects in your area. Surfrider Foundation was founded on protection of the iconic Malibu surf spot, and its current chapter network has activists who are engaged on protecting their local spots and follow these projects.”
In the United States, Cook shared that most of these projects have public input through review of planning and design documents, as well as public meetings. “Identify the folks in your local municipality that work on shoreline management and see how you can get involved through speaking at public meetings or commenting on policy.”
