South Padre Island Beach Monitoring Project Report II, Prepared for South Padre Island Economic Development Corporation.

Date

2001

Authors

Shiner Moseley And Associates, Inc.

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Abstract

This report was prepared for the South Padre Island Economic Development Corporation, South Padre, Texas, under the direction of Ms. Linda Whitby. As part of the beach nourishment program initiated at South Padre island in 1997, periodic beach profile surveying has been performed along the Town's Gulf Beach. This report presents an analysis of the survey data in support of the ongoing monitoring, planning, and design of the nourishment projects. The first report was prepared in April, 2000, to document performance of the February 1997, and February 1999, nourishment projects. In december, 2000, a third nourishment project was constructed, and subsequent monitoring surveys were performed. The analysis presented herin is intended to provide insight as to how the combined projects have functioned as opposed to focusing on any single nourishment episode. Key findings of this monitoring effort include the following: 1. In genera both the southern and northern beach widened slightly during the monitoring period, wich is a deviation from average longer-term trend of widening along the southern beach a nd narrowing along the northern beach. 2. Beach nourishment material should continue to be placed as far north as possible. Placement of the material south of Esperanza Street, as was done in the 1999 project, appears to have some benefits, but should probably only be considered when funding is not available for placement along the narrow northern beaches. There are management tools, such as a numericle model for simulating shoreline cahnge called Genesis, that can be applied to better define the placement locations. 3. The accuracy and level of detail of this analysis is limited by the lack of survey data for the offshore portion of the beach. Future monitoring, design, and ultimately project performance can likely be improved by surveying the beach beyond wading depth.

Description

Keywords

Citation