Monitoring seasonal beach responses: an educational and public service program.

It was our intention to design a program for measuring seasonal beach profiles and wave characteristics that would be both educational and useful to coastal zone managers. The program consisted of daily, visual wave observations and beach surveys conducted on every other spring low tide (monthly) for 9 months. The techniques were straightforward and the measurements were made by volunteer high school students. In our study area the beaches were c50m wide and a team of 3 students could complete one profile every 20 minutes. The results included measures of the seasonal volumetric changes along the beach; changes in beach width, berm height, and foreshore slope; wave period, height, and angle of attack; and calculations of the longshore sand transport.-from Author