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Beach & Inlet Management

Beaches provide many benefits to communities including recreational opportunities, environmental enhancement, and storm damage reduction. When allowed to go unchecked, beach erosion can eliminate all of the benefits that accrue from a healthy beach.

Many factors contribute to beach erosion. Ongoing erosion, caused by man’s presence on the shoreline or a function of continued natural beach processes, generally leads to either monetary loss from storm damage or large expenditures for shore protection to prevent the loss. Inlets, waterborne access from rivers and bays to the ocean, can create accretion and erosion problems in adjacent areas. This sand supply problem, combined with the erosion stress of periodic storm events, results in serious problems for many beaches. Long-term beach behavior and its causes usually dictate the appropriate mitigation options.

Taylor Engineering has successfully implemented beach erosion mitigation options, including beach nourishment and erosion control structures that help communities continue and, in many instances, begin to accrue benefits of a healthy beach and inlet system. Please visit our project gallery to view a variety of our beach and inlet management projects. A few project examples include

Walton County & the City of Destin Beach Renourishment Project

Taylor Engineering restored critically eroded beaches to their original beauty by locating a suitable offshore borrow source to obtain beach fill equivalent in color, composition, and grain to the well-known native sugar-white beaches. This Florida Panhandle project restored seven miles of shoreline with 3,000,000 cubic yards of sand.

Leading-edge Solutions
  • Led local community partnerships to facilitate regional beach management and to realize significant cost savings
  • Facilitated public outreach and education about project objectives
  • Identified borrow area source that met community’s desire and minimized adverse environmental impacts

Ft. Pierce Beach Sand Bypassing Feasibility Study

Taylor Engineering designed a sediment catch basin inside the Ft. Pierce Inlet to facilitate sand bypassing. Staff collected wind, water level, bathymetric, wave, and sediment flux and concentration data. Key project elements included modeling waves, currents, and morphology; preparing an environmental assessment and cost benefit analysis; and assessing engineering, environmental, and economic feasibility.

Leading-edge Solutions
  • Designed sediment basin without affecting existing worm reef
  • Determined the basin’s beneficial effects on reducing beach fill requirements on an adjacent federal storm damage reduction project
Beach inlet management

Texas General Land Office Rollover Pass Closure Feasibility Study

Throughout the last 55 years since the inlet’s creation, the project area has trapped littoral sediments that led to increased beach erosion rates; increased maintenance dredging requirements of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway; and increased salinity levels. Taylor Engineering developed a closure plan to restore the area to pre-inlet conditions.

Leading-edge Solutions
  • Developed unique closure plan that recycled previously dredged materials and demolition debris of existing pass
  • Relocated existing shore stabilization structures at significant cost savings
  • Designed the plan to accomodate an existing bridge and part of a hurricane evacuation route rebuilt after Hurricane Ike