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Coastal Sediments ‘15 in San Diego

31.05.2015

INTERCOAST PhD students Brice Blossier (IC1) and Franziska Hellmich (IC10) attended Coastal Sediments ‘15 in San Diego, USA, 11 – 15 May 2015 and wrote a report:

Every four years, the Coastal Sediments Conference welcomes the international scientific community of coastal engineers, geologists, oceanographers and other scientists interested in the physical processes of coastal sediments and morphology changes to exchange their state-of-the-art knowledge and network. The focus of the conference are the physical aspects of sediment processes in various coastal environments such as beaches, estuaries, harbours, tidal flats and many more.

This year, the Coastal Sediments ’15 with the theme “Understanding and working with Nature” took place from 11 – 15 May at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay in San Diego and was attended by more than 300 scientists from 27 countries. Session topics ranged from beach nourishment and shore protection, coastal dunes, cohesive sediment transport, field and laboratory measurements of sediment transport processes to numerical modeling, large-scale and long-term coastal changes, and many more. Dr. Robert Nicholls from the University of Southampton (UK) and Dr. J. A. Roelvink from the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education (The Netherlands) were invited as keynote speakers. Two short workshops as well as field trips along the Southern Californian coast and to the famous Scripps Institution of Oceanography completed the conference program.

Both of us had the opportunity to present the results of our current research to the scientific community in a talk of 15 minutes and have a paper published as part of the Proceedings of Coastal Sediments ‘15. Franziska gave a talk on her geotechnical in-situ investigation of sediment dynamics of Tairua Beach ...more and Brice presented a statistical analysis of Tairua beach shoreline temporal and spatial evolution ...more. Both presentations were well received and discussed with interested scientists during coffee and lunch breaks.

Franziska Hellmich during her presentation

In addition, the field trip covered different aspects of the Southern Californian coast development. Dr. R. Flick described the development of coastal structures such as the Oceanside harbor and its associated breakwater built during WWII or the rubble mound jetties preventing the closure of estuarine lagoons. In particular, Batiquitos Lagoon was restored as a mitigation of the construction of cargo terminals in outer Los Angeles Harbor. Since its completion in 1997, the wildlife in the lagoon, especially the numerous fish and shore bird species have multiplied rapidly. To compensate for the sand deficits down-drift the coastal structures, several measures had to be undertaken such as beach nourishments re-using the sand dredged to maintain the harbor and lagoon inlets and the construction of two major sea walls to protect coastal cliffs from erosion.

We both thank the DFG via INTERCOAST for funding our participation to this conference.

Besides establishing contacts within the scientific community, we also met Bryna Flaim Reinmold, former INTERCOAST post-doc, who was visiting her Californian family close to San Diego at the time and introduced us to some really delicious Mexican food. Yummy! And we also didn’t miss the once-in-a-life-time-opportunity of getting completely soaked by rain during the field trip on Friday. It never rains in California? We don’t agree…

Brice, Franziska and Byna on Mission Beach, enjoying the Californian sun