Book Description

Detached breakwaters can be a viable method of shoreline stabilization and protection in the United States. Breakwaters can be designed to retard erosion of an existing beach, promote natural sedimentation to form a new beach, increase the longevity of a beach fill, and maintain a wide beach for storm damage reduction and recreation. The combination of low-crested breakwaters and planted marsh grasses is increasingly being used to establish wetlands and control erosion along estuarine shorelines. This report summarizes and presents the most recent functional and structural design guidance available for detached breakwaters and provides examples of both prototype projects and the use of available tools to assist in breakwater design. Functional design guidance presented includes a review of existing analytical techniques and design procedures, functional design considerations, and data requirements. The chapter on structural design guidance includes static and dynamic breakwater stability and methods to determine performance characteristics such as transmission, reflection, and energy dissipation. Also included is a discussion of numerical and physical modeling as tools for prediction of morphological response to detached breakwaters, and a case example of a breakwater project designed and constructed at Bay Ridge, Maryland. Beach stabilization, Salient, Breakwaters, Tombolo.