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Beaches

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photo of beach Beaches provide a valued source of recreation and are essential habitats to many species. The redistribution of sediment or the associated transport of contaminants and waste products may threaten fragile and economically important coastal areas such as beaches. To effectively manage and maintain our Nation's beaches we must understand the processes at work that shape and change our beaches over time.

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Items below are listed from most recently updated to least recently updated.

These are results 1 through 25 of 141 matches.

Research Project
WCMG Coastal Processes Studies
Description: California's beaches and nearshore regions are valuable economic and recreational resources but also provide habitats for numerous sensitive species. During winter storms, the coast represents a potentially dangerous interface between ocean and land, nature and humans. Storms produce high waves, strong currents, and elevated sea level that can rapidly erode beaches and inundate low-lying coastal regions, damaging and/or destroying public and private infrastructure as well as stressing coastal ecosystems. Over longer-time scales (e.g. decadal), persistent erosion exacerbated by the pressures of coastal development, reduction in sediment availability and climate change, can result in severely depleted beaches. The USGS performs research along the California coast to understand the physical processes that control coastal change on time scales from individual storms to decades to support the efforts of local, state and government agencies to make informed coastal management decisions to most effectively preserve and protect this valuable resource.
updated: 2008-09-23 pages include:

Research Project
Research Projects - USGS WCMG, Applied Sediment Transport
Description: There is an increasing need to understand, model, and predict, sediment transport and how it is impacted by dam construction, dam removal, dredging, beach nourishment, and other human and natural activities along the river/sea interface. This understanding of sediment routing from source to sink is necessary in order to remove obsolete or unsafe dams, change dam operations, or implement efforts to restore habitat in streams, rivers, and estuaries at the river/sea interface.
updated: 2008-09-23 pages include:

Research Project
Southern California Coastal Hazards - USGS WCMG
Description: Southern California Coastal Hazards Study of the USGS Western Coastal and Marine Geology Team
updated: 2008-09-23 pages include:

Research Project
Coastal Processes: San Francisco Bight Coastal Processes Study - USGS WCMG
Description: San Francisco Bight Coastal Processes Study of the USGS Western Coastal and Marine Geology Team. The USGS is conducting a study that documents and analyzes the processes that control the sand transport and sedimentation patterns of Ocean Beach, a National Park site within the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. This area encompasses a complicated coastal setting that is impacted by the tidal influence of San Francisco Bay, as well as the southwest and northwest Pacific swell. High-energy conditions at this site have restricted comprehensive field surveys in the past, but recent innovations in field techniques now make it possible to perform detailed analysis of the physical processes operating on high energy coastlines, such as Ocean Beach.
updated: 2008-08-12 pages include:

Research Project
Santa Barbara-Ventura Coastal Processes Study - USGS WCMG
Description: Santa Barbara/Ventura Coastal Processes Study of the USGS Western Coastal and Marine Geology Team. Whereas coastal urban development and infrastructure are largely fixed with respect to location, shoreline and bluff positions can change substantially over time in response to natural processes. These natural coastal changes can damage or undermine urban structures, resulting in substantial property loss for federal, state, local and individual land owners. Urban development can also indirectly influence coastal change by interrupting natural supplies or transport of sediment in littoral cells. Thus, it is important to evaluate the rates, patterns and causes of coastal change to better manage sediment resources and predict change hazards in coastal urban settings. The Santa Barbara and Ventura County coast represents a littoral cell along the California coast extending from (at least) Point Conception to the Mugu submarine canyon. The beaches along this littoral cell are an important economic resource to the region, and there is evidence that shoreline and bluff erosion are impacting these beaches. Coastal change in the Santa Barbara/Ventura region is complicated, however, by the irregular coastline (there are numerous rocky headlands, river deltas and offshore reefs), variability in wave forcing, structures such as harbors, groins, piers, dams and landscape urbanization, variability in tectonic uplift, and limited information on littoral sediment sources. In response to the potential for coastal change, BEACON (Beach Erosion Authority for Clean Oceans and Nourishment) and the City of Carpinteria have provided a combined $700K in funding for USGS WCMG to evaluate the coastal change patterns and processes along the Santa Barbara/Ventura County coast until the end of 2008.
updated: 2008-08-12 pages include:

Publication
Data Series 288: Beach Morphology Monitoring in the Elwha River Littoral Cell, 2004-2006
Description: his report describes the methods used, data collected, and results of the Beach Morphology Monitoring Program in the Elwha River Littoral Cell, starting in 2004. The U.S. Geological Survey and the Washington State Department of Ecology collaborated in the data collection with the support of the local Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. Beach monitoring efforts consisted of collecting topographic and bathymetric horizontal and vertical position data by using a Real Time Kinematic Differential Global Positioning System (RTK-DGPS). The monitoring program was designed to characterize the littoral system of the Elwha River before the scheduled removal of two large dams in 2012. A primary objective of this work is to quantitatively describe the topography and bathymetry of the Elwha River littoral system so that the effects of dam removal may be quantified. Sediment inputs following dam removal are hypothesized to result in (A) larger amounts of fine sediment grain-sizes entering the littoral system and, (B) a reduction or reversal of coastal erosion.
updated: 2008-07-11 pages include:

Publication
Open-File Report 2008-1215: Winds, Waves, Tides, and the Resulting Flow Patterns and Fluxes of Water, Sediment, and Coral Larvae off West Maui, Hawaii
Description: A series of recent studies has focused on the flow patterns and particle fluxes along the coast of West Maui, Hawaii, USA, from Honolua south to Puumana. From those studies a relatively good understanding has emerged of the physical processes that influence the relative amount of suspended sediment in nearshore waters and the circulation patterns that transport sediment and coral larvae along the coast and between islands. This report is a synthesis of our existing knowledge on the nature of flow and transport off West Maui.
updated: 2008-07-02 pages include:

Publication
USGS-NPS-NASA EAARL Submarine Topography-Northern Florida Keys
Description: Digital map atlas of lidar-derived submarine topography maps for the Northern Florida Keys Reef Tract
updated: 2008-04-25 pages include:

Publication
EAARL Topography-Sagamore Hill National Historic Site (SAHI)
Description: Digital atlas of lidar-derived topography maps for Sagamore Hill National Historic Site
updated: 2008-04-24 pages include:

Publication
EAARL Topography-Gateway National Recreation Area-Home
Description: Digital map atlas of lidar-derived topography maps for the Gateway National Recreation Area
updated: 2008-04-23 pages include:

Publication
EAARL Submarine Topography-Florida Keys National Marine
Description: Digital atlas of Lidar-derived submarine topography maps for Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
updated: 2008-04-21 pages include:

Publication
EAARL First Return Topography—Fire Island National Seashore
Description: Digital map atlas of lidar-derived topography maps for Assateague Island National Seashore
updated: 2008-04-21 pages include:

Publication
USGS-NPS-NASA EAARL Bare Earth Topography - Fire Island National Seashore
Description: Digital map atlas of Lidar-derived topography maps for Fire Island National Seashore
updated: 2008-04-21 pages include:

Publication
EAARL Topography-Gulf Islands National Seashore (GUIS)-Florida
Description: Digital atlas of lidar-derived bare earth topography maps for Gulf Islands National Seashore-Florida
updated: 2008-04-17 pages include:

Publication
USGS-NPS-NASA EAARL Topography - Dry Tortugas National Park
Description: This lidar-derived submarine topography map was produced as a collaborative effort between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coastal and Marine Geology Program, National Park Service (NPS) South Florida/Caribbean Network Inventory and Monitoring Program, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Wallops Flight Facility. One objective of this research is to create techniques to survey coral reefs for the purposes of habitat mapping, ecological monitoring, change detection, and event assessment (for example: bleaching, hurricanes, disease outbreaks).
updated: 2008-03-24 pages include:

Publication
Geomorphology and Depositional Sub-environments of Assateague Island MD/VA
Description: Geomorphology and Depositional Sub-environments of Assateague Island MD/VA, Open File Report 2007-1388
updated: 2008-03-17 pages include:

Publication
EAARL Topography–Gulf Islands National Seashore
Description: Digital atlas of lidar-derived topography maps for Gulf Islands National Seashore-Mississippi
updated: 2008-03-17 pages include:

Publication
Scientific Investigations Report 2007-5254: Sources, Dispersal, and Fate of Fine Sediment Supplied to Coastal California
Description: We have investigated the sources, dispersal, and fate of fine sediment supplied to California coastal waters in a partnership between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the California Sediment Management Workgroup (CSMW). The purpose of this study was to document the rates and characteristics of these processes so that the State can better manage its coastal resources, including sediment.
updated: 2008-02-29 pages include:

Publication
EAARL Topography - Assateague Island National Seashore (ASIS)
Description: Digital atlas of lidar-derived topography maps for Assateague Island National Seashore
updated: 2008-02-27 pages include:

Publication
Open-File Report 2007-1412: Carpinteria Coastal Processes Study, 2005-2007; Final Report
Description: The United States Geological Survey (USGS), in collaboration with the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), conducted a two-year study of the beach and nearshore coastal processes for the City of Carpinteria and adjacent beaches. The work was performed in response to and worked directly with the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Project Management Plan (PMP) for the City of Carpinteria: Carpinteria Shoreline, Santa Barbara County, California PMP (June 2003).
updated: 2008-02-04 pages include:

Research Project
USGS Northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM) - Welcome!
Description: The goal of the USGS Northern Gulf of Mexico project is to understand the evolution of coastal ecosystems on the Northern Gulf Coast, the impact of human activities on these ecosystems, and the vulnerability of ecosystems and human communities to more frequent and more intense hurricanes in the future.
updated: 2008-01-31 pages include:

Publication
USGS Professional Paper 1751: Systematic Mapping of Bedrock and Habitats along the Florida Reef Tract--Central Key Largo to Halfmoon Shoal
Description: Systematic Mapping of Bedrock and Habitats along the Florida Reef Tract: Central Key Largo to Halfmoon Shoal (Gulf of Mexico) details the bio/geologic record in the Florida Keys from 325,000 years ago to the present.
updated: 2008-01-23 pages include:

Publication
Habitat and Hydrology: Assessing Biological Resources of the Suwannee River Estuarine System Open-File Report 2007-1382
Description: Habitat and Hydrology: Assessing Biological Resources of the Suwannee River Estuarine System, Open File Report 2007-1382
updated: 2008-01-18 pages include:

Research Project
Coastal Change Hazards: Hurricanes and Extreme Storms
Description: This project investigates the coastal impacts of hurricanes and extreme storms, such as Hurricanes Isabel (2003), Dennis (1999), Bonnie & Georges (1998), and winter storms, such as those associated with the 1997-98 El Niño.
updated: 2008-01-16 pages include:

Educational Materials
USGS Monterey Bay Science
Description: USGS Monterey Bay Science - USGS research in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and coastal watersheds of central California
updated: 2008-01-01 pages include:

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