HISTORY OF BEACH NOURISHMENT IN VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA: IS BIGGER ALWAYS BETTER?

Virginia Beach, Virginia is one of the most frequently nourished beaches on the East Coast. It also has one of the longest histories of beach nourishment. Both critics and proponents of beach nourishment can agree that Virginia Beach is a success story of how and where beach nourishment can work. Thus, it should be examined to determine what factors have contributed to its success.

Upon closer examination, two factors can be identified that set Virginia Beach apart from other nourished resort beaches. First, it has been primarily locally funded and locally administered, which has enabled it to carry out beach nourishment more efficiently. Data compiled by Duke University's Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines indicate that federal nourishment projects are consistently more expensive on a unit cost basis than non-federal projects. Virginia Beach has one of the lowest unit cost nourishment expenditures on the East Coast.

Second, rather than depend on predictions made by complex models, Virginia Beach has primarily relied upon historical observations of how individual nourishment applications have performed over time. These observations led Virginia Beach to conclude early on that they needed to carry out nourishment on an annual basis. Several have recognized that the history of beach nourishment at Virginia Beach reveals that depositing a large amount of sand at one time, in an effort to reduce costs, does not eliminate the need for nourishment every year. Thus, while it may be more cost-effective in some locations to place a large amount of sand every 3 - 4 years, in Virginia Beach it appears that it is better to place smaller applications of sand on an annual basis.

Carrying out nourishment on annual basis has avoided nourishment lifetime expectations, predicted by complex engineering models, from being disappointed. In addition, annual nourishment has ensured that there is always an adequate recreational beach to support Virginia Beach's largest industry, tourism.