Date: 6 July 2014
 

Monitoring Team: Mark, Nick & Shawn
 

Analysis & Report: David Bills-Thompson, PFCG Technical Officer and Data Co-ordinator

 

Commentary: Notably this month, all but one post recorded a loss of sand height. The highest loss occurred at post 4 closely followed by posts 5, 10, 9 and 7. Post 8 is at its highest level since April 2014. There was no sand height measured for post 8 in June. See Sand Gain Loss 0714.pdf

Beach Profile data from Jan 2013 indicates the sand height is similar to posts 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9 this month. See Each Beach Profiles 0714.pdf

Post 8 did not follow the height trend down. Data from the Dune Toe chart (See posts 7 and 9) suggests that erosion of the dune toe at post 8 might have been in the order of 3 metres had the WED structure not been in place. See Dune Toe 0714.pdf

Also for the first time posts 11 and 12 have shown wave erosion forming a dune toe. This part of the beach is around half a metre higher than the beach at post 8 so the lack of toe erosion at post 8 is remarkable.

The transverse profile clearly shows retained sand height on the beach between the 5 and 10 metre marks. The face of the WED structure is 7 metres from post 8.
See Post 8 Transverse Profile 0714.pdf

A new chart has been introduced and shows the end effect of the rock wall on the beach height. See LongitudinalProfile.pdf

This shows a 600mm sand loss from the beach directly in front of the dune and to the left of post 8. 

The data available so far indicates the WED structure can protect the dune toe but it needs to be longer to cover as much of the low part of the beach as possible.

Due to the impact of the recent weather and the trial of the Wave Energy Dissipation structure, this report only covers Sand Height, Dune Toe and Post 8 transverse and longitudinal profiles.