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Description:
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The landfall of hurricane Claudette in 2003 damaged and eroded most Texas
coastal counties . The residents of Pointe San Luis on the west end of Galveston Island ,
Texas lost their protective dune front and experienced significant shoreline erosion .
Following the storm , the Pointe San Luis Property Owner's Association contacted Texas
A &M University to design a dune restoration strategy . The greatest natural contributor
to dune reconstruction is the available sand delivered by aeolian transport . During the
course of the study it became apparent that no model or software existed capable of
demonstrating the effectiveness of available dune restoration alternatives . Building
Beachà © , a coastal aeolian sand transport simulator , was developed in response to this
need . Based on discrete dynamics and requiring a minimum of technical input , the
software allows coastal property owners , consultants , and coastal developers to
graphically model the effectiveness of several dune restoration options including sand
fence , planted vegetation , geo -textiles , and other solid protective barriers . The graphical
output of Building Beachà © enables the user to compare approximations of the
performance of different restoration strategies to select the most effective option for a
particular beach . |