National Shoreline Management Study

WRDA 1999, Section 215(c) calls for the Corps of Engineers to prepare a report for Congress recommending the appropriate level of federal and non-federal participation in shore protection and the use of a systems approach to sand management. The report will also describe the extent of, and economic and environmental effects caused by, erosion and accretion along the shores of the U.S; the causes of such erosion and accretion;.the systematic movement of sand along U.S. shores; and Federal, State, and local government resources committed to restore and renourish shores.

The Corps of Engineers Institute for Water Resources (IWR) is managing the study working closely with the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory and other Federal agencies. Since the study initiation in 2001, the federal agencies agreed that the report would be a Federal interagency report addressing shore management in its broadest context, rather than a shore protection study only.

By 2006, external influences, i.e., the US Ocean Commission and Pew Ocean reports, the 2004 hurricane season, the flooding of New Orleans, and the rise of regional alliances of coastal governance, necessitated a change in addressing shore protection. The Corp of Engineers adopted a systems approach to coastal and flood protection and is collabaorating with Federal and non-Federal agencies to find ways to better manage the risk and uncertainty in dealing with coastal hazards. As a result, appropriate levels of Federal and non-Federal participation in shore management are evolving and emerging, and shore protection is considered as one element of coastal management to address the management of coastal hazard risks and uncertainties and to improve community resiliency to coastal hazards.

The study is now focused on identifying how federal agencies can collaborate and integrate their shore management programs to improve program and service efficiencies and effectiveness to non-Federal agencies, which are involved with shore management, for the purposes of reducing the impact of coastal hazards and improving community resilience.

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