Field Performance of Reinforced Dunes for Improving Coastal Resilience

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Date of Original Version

1-1-2019

Abstract

Increased coastal erosion rates have forced communities to rethink how to manage vulnerable coastlines. In many locations there is a trend towards implementing temporary engineering solutions, such as geotextile sand containers (GSCs) and geo-tubes, to stabilize erosion hot spots and assess the impact of these designs while long-term solutions are developed. GSCs and geo-tubes have the potential to increase the resilience of natural systems to protect coastlines from smaller storm events (e.g. 25-year storms) while providing flexibility in design considering the uncertainty regarding future rates of sea level rise and storm frequency. The objective of this paper is to summarize the performance of geotextile stabilized coastal sites and present results of on-going field studies to assess the performance of GSC reinforced dunes in Montauk, NY. The better-than-expected, resilient performance of GSCs and geo-tubes at most locations and recent reinforcement of dunes, bluffs, and shorelines in New York, Massachusetts, and Hawaii emphasizes the need for continued field research and in situ monitoring to collect high-quality performance data to better evaluate laboratory experiments and numerical models developed to predict the hydraulic stability of these systems.

Publication Title, e.g., Journal

Geotechnical Special Publication

Volume

2019-March

Issue

GSP 313

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