COASTAL PROTECTION

Economic impact of coastal protection

1. Prevent national loss due to disaster

 Protecting beach area from erosion by constructing seawall
2. Increase new development
 Construction of beach house, residence, resort, etc.
3. Promote tourism industry business
 Beach protected and extended with coastal protection system, which able to cater and
attract many people. Thus increase the tourism activities and industry business
4. Preserving of beach amenity
 The beach are protected, thus ensure the amenity and preserved as national wonders.
5. Promoting other industry
 Due to the multiplier effect of tourism industry. Transportation industry, retail industry,
manufacturing industry etc. Eventually create more jobs and employment.

Objectives

1. To prevent the hinterlands from being flooded by the sea

2. To prevent the hinterland from being eroded
3. To create new shoreline along the coast
4. To protect the marine flora and fauna
5. To maintain the amenity, function and useful feature of the beach

Design consideration of coastal protection structures

1. Operation and maintenance

a) Procedure
b) Cost
2. Function of the structure
a) High water protection
b) Wave attenuation
c) Flow guidance
3. Construction method
a) Material
b) Equipment
c) Labour
4. Physical environment
a) Hydrodynamic forces
b) Geotechnical characteristics
Hard vs soft engineering

Soft engineering Hard engineering

Function to stop or disrupt natural processes to protect the coast rather than trying to
stop natural processes

Nature of Natural approach Artificial approach

work

Cost Less expensive Expensive

Impact to Less negative impact to environment More negative impact to environment

environment

Maintenance Require less maintenance Require regular maintenance

Time Long term solution Short term solution

Example Beach nourishment, planting mangrove, Seawall, gabion, breakwater, groyne,

stabilising dune, encouraging coral reef revetment
growth

Seawalls

 A hard and strong structure constructed on the inland part of a coast.

 It reduces the effects of strong waves, thus lessen the coastal erosion
 The purpose of seawalls is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation, and leisure
activation from the action of tides and waves.
 Seawalls work by reflecting wave energy back into the sea, thereby reducing the energy and
erosion which coastline would otherwise be subjected to.
 They range from a heavy mass concrete or masonry structure to light timber work or pitch
revetment.
 Modern concrete seawalls tend to be curved to reflect energy back to the sea.
 Improper and poor design of seawalls will require more maintenance as waves erode the base
of the seawall.
 Types of seawalls:
a) Vertical seawall – built in exposed situations which reflects wave energy and develop
standing waves
b) Curved seawall – built vertically curved to prevent waves from overtopping the wall and
protect the toe
c) Mound-type structure seawall – built usually porous in least exposed site with low energy
erosional processes operate
 Construction process:
1. Site survey
 Survey the area of seawall to be built
 Measure the length of the area and not the highest high tide
 2. Preliminaries and general item
 Start with preliminaries work such as site investigation and safety signboard as a
precaution to the public
3. Dredging a trench for seawall foundation
 Remove mud using grab dredger anchored to the bed to provide stable trench for
seawall foundation
 The required depth depend on the desired height of the seawall
4. Depositing rock fill for rubble mound foundation
 Material consisting of different grading of fill material and rock armour forming layers,
were deposited.
 The armour layer are placed stone by stone to ensure interlocking
5. Installing Precast Seawall block
 The rubble foundation are tamped with a layer of granular material
 The block are installed piece by piece onto the rubble foundation
 Advantages:
i. Able to dissipate wave energy and deflect waves back to the sea
ii. Able to protect cliff from collapsing
iii. Able to protect the shoreline from eroding

 Disadvantages
i. Transport sediment offshore and longshore
ii. Scours occurs at seawall toes erode the beach
iii. Can be aesthetically unappalling

Revetment

 A flexible structure typically consist of armor rocks or cast concrete blocks

 Rest sloping on the surface of the shoreline and dependent on it for support.
 Relatively light structures.
 Constructed using natural stone, concrete blocks, or net mesh stone-filled mattresses
 If properly designed, it can be a long-life coastal protection structure that requires low
maintenance.
 Constructed permeable and interlocking
 Voids within the revetment permit quick drainage as waves water rise over the surface of the
revetment’s slope.
 Rubble revetments are often used as reinforcement for seawalls’ toe or footing to minimize the
reflection
 Construction process:
1. General clearing and preparation of site
 General preparation of the site which consists of removal of all trees and vegetation
and all existing structures which need to be disposed to an approved disposal area.
2. Excavation works
 The ground are excavated to the levels required for the construction.
 All loose soil, turf, vegetation and peat from the excavation and any excess excavated
material is to be removed and disposed off-site to a suitable spoil dump.
3. Sand-filling
 Imported sand filling are filled in layers, levelled, watered, rolled over, and compacted
with mechanical roller plant
 The excavations should be kept free from water at all times by bailing and pumping.
4. Laying of Geotextile Fabric
 Irregularities of the surface shall be levelled before the geotextile fabric is laid.
 The geotextile needs to be laid loosely without stretching to avoid tear on the fabric

5. Placement of armour rocks

 Small rock is placed on top of the geotextile fabric followed by larger rock.
 All rocks shall be carefully and accurately placed to prevent large voids between them.
 Care should be taken during the placement of rocks to prevent the tear of the
geotextile fabric
6. Step 6: Backfilling the toe and sloping crest
 The toe of the revetment is backfilled with excavated materials.
 Crusher run is backfilled at the rear-end of revetment crest to provide walkway for
maintenance.
 Advantages:
i. Cheaper and require low maintenance than seawall
ii. Able to protect cliff from collapsing
iii. Help trapping the sediments from longshore drift to build-up beach
 Disadvantages:
i. Short lifespan and require high maintenance
ii. Unsuitable when the wave energy is high
iii. Can disturb the beach amenity

Breakwater

 A structure constructed on coasts to protect an anchorage from the effects of both weather and
longshore drift.
 Wave action is reduced through a combination of reflection and dissipation of incoming wave
energy.
 When oncoming waves hit breakwaters, their erosive power is concentrated on these
structures, which are some distance away from the coast.
 This creates an area of slack water between the breakwater and the coast.
 In harbor, breakwaters are constructed to create sufficiently calm water for safe mooring and
loading operations, handling of ships, and protection of harbor facilities
 Types of breakwaters include:
1. Rubble mound – use structural voids to dissipate wave energy which consist of piles of
stones sorted according to their size. Small stone at core and large stone as the armour
which protect the core from wave attack.
 2. Caisson – Typically vertical sided and erected on location to berth vessels on the inner faces
of breakwater
3. Wave attenuator – concrete elements properly dimensioned placed horizontally under the
free surface, positioned along a line parallel to the coast.
 Construction process:
 Advantages:
i. Protection substantial shoreline frontages.
ii. If designed carefully, can provide artificial habitat for the marine life
iii. Encourage build-up of beach
 Disadvantages:
i. Erosion on coastline are not stopped
ii. Can be aesthetically unappalling
iii. Inefficient in the future if the sea level increases.

Groyne

 A structure built perpendicular to the coastline from the shore to the sea.
 Function is to trap sediment transport or control longshore currents.
 Holds artificial nourished material on a beach that has no natural supply.
 Improve the extent and quality of amenity beach.
 Usually made up of a number of individual groyne structure that similar in length and spaced at
regular intervals.
 Types of material for groynes; wooden, rock, steel, concrete, rubble-mound, or sand-filled bags.
 Construction process:
 Advantages:
i. Create barriers to the recreational use of the upper beach
ii. Reduce longshore transport by trapping beach material
iii. Reduce future disturbance of the shoreline environment
iv. Cheap to construct and requires low maintenance
 Disadvantages
i. Induces local scour at the toes of groynes
ii. Make the coast look ugly and unnatural
iii. Inefficient to install only one groynes

Gabion

 A cage, cylinder, or box filled with rocks, concrete, or soil

 Can also be:
a) Wire mesh (PVC) coated) filled with broken stones or rock to form large blocks of stones
b) Fabricated from welded high tensile steel mesh
 A gabion wall is made by stacking the stone-filled gabions and tied together with wire.
 Usually battered (angled back towards the slope) or stepped back with the slope rather than
stacked vertically.
Beach nourishment

 A soft structure solution used for prevention of coastal erosion

 Also known as beach replenishment, beach feeding, and beach recharge.
 Natural beach materials are artificially placed on the eroded part of the beach to compensate
the loss of natural supply of beach material.
 It is recommended to find a suitable source of material that is compatible, but not necessarily
identical to the material on the beach.
 Material to be deposited may be the same, or large, grain size and density as the natural beach
material.
 The beach to be fill might protect not only the beach where it is placed, but also downdrift
stretches by providing an updrift point source of material.
 It is often the most satisfactory means of protecting a shoreline as it provide the necessary
reservoir of material that allows a beach to respond to wave and achieved equilibrium
 The period of re-nourishment is about 5-10 years.
 Advantages:
i. Improve beach quality
ii. Improve storm protection
iii. Increase aesthetic appearance
 Disadvantages
i. Expensive
ii. Effect marine ecosystem
iii. Require continuous sand supply

Precautions during construction of marine structures.

1. Do site investigation of the surrounding site area

2. Study the change of tides and waves of the area
3. Place netting, barriers, or fencing to prevent aquatic animals from entering the site
4. Minimize water pollution
5. Study and choose suitable plant and machineries for construction works

Survey and investigations before marine works

1. Hydrography survey – a survey on physical features present underwater conducted with

sounding line or echo sounding
2. Topographic survey – a survey that gathers data about the elevation of points on a surfaces and
presents them as contour lines on a plot
3. Oceanographic survey – a survey on the physical and biological aspects of the ocean which
includes ecosystem dynamics, currents, waves, etc.
4. Hydraulic survey – a survey on the features of bodies of water including contours, channels, and
watershed information for lakes, rivers, and seas.
5. Geotechnical investigation – an investigation on surface and sub-surface exploration on the
physical properties of thee soil/ground.