Coastal Processes

Understanding a region’s coastal processes and their effects on the coastal system represents a crucial element of nearly every coastal engineering project. Taylor Engineering has extensive experience in every aspect of coastal processes analyses including

• Shoreline changes
• Beach volume changes
• Empirical orthogonal analyses
• Sediment budgets
• Littoral transport (by waves, tides, and winds)
• Storm effects
• Inlet management
• Sand bypassing
• Storm damage assessments
• Wave modeling
• Tidal hydrodynamics modeling
• Beach modeling

We apply wave models to investigate borrow site mining impacts on fronting beaches, to analyze the effects of hardbottom on nearshore beach behavior, to assess the effects of structures on adjacent shorelines and shoal systems, to estimate sediment transport in the littoral zone, and to provide input to shoreline change and dune erosion models.

Our beach modeling applications include storm erosion modeling and shoreline change modeling to assess storm damage risk to upland development, to help design shore protection projects, and to quantify beach restoration benefits.

We apply tidal hydrodynamic models to design inlet jetties, to assess inlet impacts on adjacent beaches, to examine flushing and water quality, and to define inlet shoal dredging templates by examining impacts on inlet shoaling, navigation, environmental resources, and adjacent beaches. We also model tidal currents to estimate impacts of thermal plumes on sediment entrainment, to design coastal structures at inlets, and to quantify water quality for beach fill projects. In most projects, hydrodynamic models provide input to sediment transport models.