Soft Shore Protection: An Environmental Innovation in Coastal Engineering: 7 (Coastal Systems and Continental Margins, 7) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1402011539 ISBN 13: 9781402011535

Publisher: Springer, 2003

Synopsis

Global warming, melting polar caps, rising sea levels and intensifying wave-current action, factors responsible for the alarming phenomena of coastal erosion on the one hand and adverse environmental impacts and the high cost of 'hard' protection schemes, on the other, have created interest in the detailed examination of the potential and range of applicability of the emerging and promising category of 'soft' shore protection methods. 'Soft' methods such as beach nourishment, submerged breakwaters, artificial reefs, gravity drain systems, floating breakwaters, plantations of hydrophylous shrubs or even dry branches, applied mostly during the past 20 years, are recognised as possessing technical, environmental and financial advantageous properties deserving more attention and further developmental experimentation than has occured hitherto. On the other hand, 'hard' shore protection methods such as seawalls, groins and detached breakwaters, artefacts borrowed from port design and construction technology, no matter how well designed and well implemented they may be, can hardly avoid intensification of the consequential erosive, often devastating, effects on the down-drift shores. Moreover, they often do not constitute environmentally and financially attractive solutions for long stretches of eroding shoreline. Engineers and scientists practising design and implementation of shore defence schemes have been aware for many years of the public demand for improved shore protection technologies. They are encouraging efforts that promise enrichment of those environmentally sound and financially attractive methods that can be safely applied.

About this title

Synopsis

The shift from hard shore to soft shore protection has been an impetus to further our understanding of coastal processes and to develop effective, environmentally friendly, and low-cost defence strategies against the erosive sea action. This collection of application-oriented contributions on Soft Shore Protection represents a milestone for environmental coastal engineering science and technology. It covers, among other subjects, nourishing techniques and light structures that slow down or even eliminate erosion, as well as possibilities that coastal management authorities and specialists need to know. Scientists at engineering, earth sciences and oceanography faculties and institutions will find essential information on this new, expanding field. This volume resulting from the Soft Shore Protection Conference 2000 is directed to educators, students, design coastal engineers, contractors, and national and local coast managers around the world. The CD-ROM contains full color images of a selection of illustrations printed as black and white figures in the book.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1402011539
• ISBN 13: 9781402011535
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 414
• Editor: Goudas Constantine, Katsiaris George, May Vincent, Karambas Theophanis