Abstract
During the fall and winter of 2015, a beneficial-use of dredged material project taking material from the Galveston Entrance Channel and placing it on a severely eroded beach of Galveston Island was conducted. This material was estimated to have 38percent fines. This operation was conducted again in the fall of 2019 and monitored for estimation of the loss of fines, changes in compaction and color from the dredging source to the beach. The local community and state funded the incremental cost at approximately $8 a cubic yard in 2015, and $10.5 a cubic yard in 2019 to have this material pumped to the beach. The projects were closely monitored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) and the USACE Galveston District. The data from this placement project was used to calculate and better understand the loss of fines during the dredging and placement process as well as aid in the generation of an empirical formula to estimate the loss of fine sediments during dredging and beach placement. This formula takes into account: losses due to dredging equipment operations, slope of the effluent return channel at the beach, sediment settling velocity, and sorting parameter.Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/VQ36upT2iQo
Highlights
The scarcity of quality sediments for beach placement projects has become a challenge in UnitedStates of America and internationally
Once the sediment is placed onto the beach and decanted further reduction of fines is observed, with a return/runoff value of 34.442 μm which ends up leaving a berm with an average grain size of 460.438μm
The results showed a lightening effect throughout the dredging and placement process in hue, value, and chroma; lower values correlate to darker sediment
Summary
The scarcity of quality sediments for beach placement projects has become a challenge in UnitedStates of America and internationally. The desire of local stakeholders to maintain the aesthetics and the collective memory of their optimum beach state combined with tightening environmental regulations, has led to increased nourishment cost and in some locations compatible sediment scarcity (Berkowitz et al 2018). This, coupled with marine transgression and in some areas coastal subsidence, has yielded shorelines that experience high rates of erosion as a result These challenges must be met by developing new engineering solutions and advancing existing practices to achieve a balance within the confines of legal restrictions and environmental guidance. The statutes give guidelines for both grain size and color for sediment placed on their beaches
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