The
Texas coast loses an average of three feet of shoreline a year as the result
of erosion.
(College Station)—Beach erosion along the Texas coastline from recent hurricanes has not been as bad as expected, but the long-term outlook shows erosion in the state could be a huge problem over the next few decades, with thousands of homes affected and some roads completely disappearing, says a Texas A&M University at Galveston researcher.
William Seitz, professor of marine sciences who has done numerous studies on beach erosion, says that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, while doing devastating damage to structures, apparently didn't harm the coast line as much as some other storms, even ones that are less severe.
"Early indications are that the two hurricanes didn't contribute a whole lot to the beach erosion problem in Texas," says Seitz.
"As strong as hurricanes are, sometimes the less powerful storms are the ones that cause the most erosion. Tropical Storm Frances in 1998 was maybe the worst storm we've had in recent years in terms of erosion. It just eroded the heck out of the Texas coastline for days.
"Hurricanes tend to come in quickly and then leave quickly," Seitz says. "But tropical storms often linger around for days, and that's when you can get some very serious beach erosion occurring."
Because most of the Texas coastline was on the west side of the hurricanes, the side that tends to get the less damaging winds compared to the east or right side of the storms, the winds were not as strong and much of the coast escaped serious erosion problems, he says.
Seitz and other scientists and engineers at Texas A&M at Galveston are currently providing the geologic support for the sand source work (both bay and offshore) of the Texas General Land Office, the lead state agency handling Texas response to beach erosion.
"Tropical storms such as Frances hang around and pound the beach for days," Seitz adds. "Also, the constant and strong underwater currents tropical storms produce can really eat away at the beach."
Seitz says the Texas coast loses an average of three feet of shoreline a year as the result of erosion.
That's bad enough, but some parts of the United States, such as the Louisiana coast, are losing as much as 10 feet per year, he notes. Much of the worst erosion in Texas occurs near Galveston Bay, his research shows.
Seitz participated in a study by the Heinz Center in Washington, D.C., for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that shows that several thousand Texas homes and at least one road will be completely destroyed in the next 60 years because of erosion. Over that time period nationally, erosion will claim one out of four homes within 500 feet of the shoreline.
In the Gulf of Mexico, there are about 44,000 homes within 500 feet of the shoreline.
"Erosion is a problem that is not going away," Seitz says. "There are re-nourishment programs, whereby you move sand from one area and place it to a location that is suffering from erosion. But this is not a long-term solution. Geo tubes—devices planted under the sand with vegetation grown on top of them—have some success, but almost all are designed to withstand only a category 1 or 2 hurricane, not a 3 or 5.
"Access to the beach is a resource that people place an enormous value on," he adds. "People naturally gravitate to the beach, and many want to live as close to it as possible. We have to protect our beaches or they will gradually be gone, and to do that, you have to try and modify what nature has done. The big questions are how to do it, and how much are we willing to pay? Those are questions every beach community must answer."