CSE provides engineering solutions to complex coastal erosion problems. We have designed dozens of beach restoration projects covering over 70 miles of coast in the Carolinas and elsewhere.
Projects designed by CSE have cost over $130 million to construct while protecting and enhancing more than $10 billion of oceanfront property over the past 25 years. At some sites, there was virtually no market for real estate due to severe erosion and homes sitting in the surf. CSE beach restoration projects not only rebuilt lost beaches, but helped rebuild the local real estate market and preserved the tax base.
The addition of sand to the littoral system is an environmentally friendly solution to erosion whether it is derived from artificial nourishment, inlet bypassing, or natural processes. When beach quality sediments are dredged or trucked into place, they quickly mix with the native sand. With careful design and selection of borrow sediments, the dry beach and wet beach zone forms a profile shaped like the native beach, but displaced seaward.
Wider beaches mean less dune scarping in storms, less exposure of seawalls, emergency sandbags or buildings in the active surf zone, and preservation of seaward vegetation buffers. Nourishment maintains natural vistas of dunes, beach and surf that are the great attraction of the coast.
Organisms adapted to the energetic conditions of the surf zone quickly occupy nourished beaches and provide food for coastal fisheries and shore birds. Wider dry beaches expand nesting areas for sea turtles and reduce the incidence of nest washouts.
CSE services are indeed High-Value– for the environment as well as the economy.
