Coastal Engineering - 12 ATAR Marine

Vocabulary practice flashcards based on coastal engineering principles, types of engineering solutions, and ecological impacts of artificial structures.

Longshore current

When waves move at an angle to the coast and transport sand along the beach.

Swash

Moves waves and sand up the beach.

Backwash

Moves waves down the beach.

Constructive waves

Waves that add sand to the beach.

Destructive waves

Waves that remove sand from the beach.

Sand budget

The amount of sand coming in and out of a beach system.

Equilibrium

A sand budget that has a balanced expense and income.

Coastal erosion

The permanent removal of all or parts of a coastline.

Eroding beach

A beach created when large waves hitting the shoreline erode the sand.

Accreting beach

A beach created when small waves carry sand onto the beach.

Coastal Engineering

The construction in, near or on the coast including houses, marinas, groynes, and desalination plants.

Hard Engineering

Artificially built solutions to control the natural processes of an area, such as Seawalls, Groynes, and Breakwaters.

Soft Engineering

Nature based solutions to work with the natural processes of the area, such as Beach nourishment and Dune stabilisation.

Sea wall

Physical barriers, also known as rock revetment or rock armour, usually made of rock and lying parallel to the coast to stop foreshore erosion.

Groynes

Large boulder walls constructed at right angles to the beach to form a barrier to longshore sand movements and trap moving sand.

Breakwaters

Structures similar to groynes that go out at right angles before veering in the direction of the longshore drift to protect an area from sea forces.

Training Walls

Rock walls built on the constraints of a river to force water into a deeper channel to provide safe passage and stabilize entrances.

Artificial reefs

Structures constructed parallel to the beach to reduce wave action, decrease wave energy, and reduce longshore currents.

Beach Nourishment

Also known as beach filling or soft armouring, the process of adding large quantities of sand or sediment to beaches to combat erosion.

Sand Bypass System

A soft engineering solution where sand is picked up by a pumping jetty and gravity fed to a pump station to be moved to an eroded area.

Biodiversity

The variety of life in a particular habitat.

Biomass

The total mass of living organisms in a given area or ecosystem.

C.Y. O’Connor Beach

The location of an artificial reef that reduced wave force by $20\%$ and increased fish species from $29$ to $57$.