Environmental Studies Commons^™

Metrics Of Shoreline Armoring Impacts On Beach Morphology In The Salish Sea, Wa, Hannah Drummond

WWU Graduate School Collection

Coastal development, and the shoreline defenses that accompany it, makes it important to understand the shoreline’s response to anthropogenic modifications. Armoring, or shoreline erosion control structures such as seawalls or riprap, is found on an estimated one third of Salish Sea shorelines and has been shown to degrade nearshore habitat. We compared physical beach characteristics from adjacent sections of armored and unarmored shoreline at locations throughout the Salish Sea to assess the effects of armoring on beach morphology. Nineteen sites, each approximately 500 meters alongshore, were selected from ten reaches sampled with boat-based LiDAR by the WA Dept. of Ecology …