What direction coastal engineering

Abstract From the indictments of coastal engineering expertise made a decade ago the present-day progress must be examined to see where effort should be placed in the future. There are certain proven principles respecting beach processes and offshore structures which can guide and suggest new measures to be taken. The need is to keep open minds and not to throw out any novel suggestion until all aspects of feasibility and economics have been examined. There are data collection programmes and modelling procedures that should be questioned for their applicability to the problem being solved. This paper discusses some issues with a view to making clients and consultants more conscious of the dollar investment in research and development of this fast developing field.