{"id":62285,"date":"2011-08-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-31T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-researchers-hurricane-irene-caused-less-coastal-erosion-then-feared\/"},"modified":"2011-08-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-31T00:00:00","slug":"uri-researchers-hurricane-irene-caused-less-coastal-erosion-then-feared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2011\/08\/uri-researchers-hurricane-irene-caused-less-coastal-erosion-then-feared\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 researchers: Hurricane Irene caused less coastal erosion then feared"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 August 31, 2011 \u2013 Beaches in Narragansett, South Kingstown and Charlestown were lowered by about four feet due to the erosion of sand by Hurricane Irene, but a researcher at the 溏心vlog免费B站 said that beach erosion was considerably less than had been feared.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThe volume of change did not approach the magnitude of what happened during Hurricane Bob,\u201d said Jon Boothroyd, 溏心vlog免费B站 emeritus professor of geosciences, who has monitored erosion on Rhode Island beaches since 1977. \u201cSome of the displaced sand went over the top dunes and was deposited in the beach driveways and parking lots. Some sand went offshore, but some of that will come back.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tHe said that municipal workers in the area are already collecting sand from some of the beach parking lots and preparing to return it to the beaches.<\/p>\n


\n\tBoothroyd, doctoral student Bryan Oakley of Middletown and undergraduate Scott Rasmussen of Cumberland collected pre-storm beach profiles last Friday at Charlestown Beach, Browning\u2019s Beach in Matunuck, South Kingstown Town Beach and Narragansett Town Beach. They returned on Monday to profile the same beaches and document erosion and other changes.<\/p>\n


\n\tThey found that the berm \u2013 the area where most beachgoers place their blankets \u2013 lost about four feet in vertical thickness of sand, causing the beach to slope downward more steeply.<\/p>\n


\n\t\u201cThe beaches in Rhode Island are definitely eroding, but some years it doesn\u2019t erode at all,\u201d Boothroyd said. \u201cIf there are no storms, there is no erosion. If we have a winter without many storms, then some of that sand comes back.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tAccording to Boothroyd, five factors dictate the amount of erosion that takes place: the size and intensity of the storm, the speed of the storm through the area, the tidal phase, the path of the storm in relation to the beach, and the time between storms. <\/p>\n


\nIrene was relatively fast moving and hit as the tide was dropping, but it also spread out over a large geographic area with a path that put Rhode Island where the strongest winds occur. Wind speeds only reached about 50 miles per hour, and the storm surge was just three feet, which was a foot lower than during Hurricane Bob.<\/p>\n


\n\tBoothroyd said that the net movement of sand from Rhode Island beaches is from west to east along the shore. That means that much of the sand that is displaced from beaches in South Kingstown, Charlestown and Westerly ends up in Galilee Harbor, where it is dredged out periodically. 溏心vlog免费B站 4,000 cubic yards of sand is deposited in Galilee each year on average, with an additional 5,000 cubic yards ending up in the breachways in Charlestown, Weekapaug and Quonochontaug.<\/p>\n


\nPictured above

\nThe calm before the storm at Charlestown Beach.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 August 31, 2011 \u2013 Beaches in Narragansett, South Kingstown and Charlestown were lowered by about four feet due to the erosion of sand by Hurricane Irene, but a researcher at the 溏心vlog免费B站 said that beach erosion was considerably less than had been feared. \u201cThe volume of change did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}