Little by little, Hawaii’s iconic beaches are disappearing.
Most beaches on the state’s three largest islands are eroding, and the erosion is likely to accelerate as sea levels rise, the United States Geological Survey is reporting.
Though average erosion rates are relatively low — perhaps a few inches per year — they range up to several feet per year and are highly variable from island to island and within each island, agency scientists say. The report says that over the last century, about 9 percent of the sandy coast on the islands of Hawaii, Oahu and Maui has vanished. That’s almost 14 miles of beach.
The findings have important implications for public safety, the state’s multibillion-dollar tourism economy and the way of life Hawaiians treasure, said Charles H. Fletcher, who led the work for the agency.
“This is a serious problem,” said Dr. Fletcher, a geologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. (...)
The new analysis, “National Assessment of Shoreline Change: Historical Shoreline Change in the Hawaiian Islands,” is the latest in a series of reports the geological survey has produced for the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, California and some of Alaska. Over all, their findings are similar: “They all show net erosion to varying degrees,” said Asbury H. Sallenger Jr., a coastal scientist for the agency who leads the work. (...)
But that is not ordinarily the case in Hawaii, where the typical
response to erosion has been to protect buildings with sea walls and
other coastal armor. “It’s the default management tool,” Dr. Fletcher
said. But in Hawaii, as nearly everywhere else this kind of armor has
been tried, it results in the degradation or even loss of the beach, as
rising water eventually meets the wall, drowning the beach.
He suggested planners in Hawaii look to American Samoa, where, he said,
“it’s hard to find a single beach. It has been one sea wall after
another.”
by Cornelia Dean, NY Times | Read more:
Photo: Jewel Samad/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
