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Abstract

The Conference on Coastal Engineering at Long Beach was conceived originally as a local meeting of engineers and scientists interested in shoreline problems and was sponsored by the University of California. It early became evident that there was widespread interest in the subject and that the program should be planned on a more ambitious scale. The aim was to aid engineers by summarizing the present state of the art and science related to the design and planning of coastal works rather than to present a series of original scientific contributions. Starting from a rather comprehensive outline, invitations were issued to recognized authorities to report on specific phases of the subject, and the authors cooperated splendidly both in their treatment of the subjects assigned and in their avoidance of overlapping other subjects. Although much remains to be done in the way of developing reliable design methods, the series of papers presented at the conference and published in this volume do represent a rather thorough summary of coastal engineering as now practiced. Engineers engaged in the design of coastal works have had available to them a large number of papers dealing with various phases of the science related to their problems, but proper dealing with design were limited in number and scope. Only a few books on coastal engineering have been published. The quality and scope of the papers and the need for a comprehensive and modern treatment of the subject convinced the sponsors of the conference that publication in a single volume was desirable rather than piecemeal in the scientific and technical journals. The newly-formed Council on Wave Research secured funds to underwrite the publication costs from its parent organization, the Engineering Foundation. A word about the term "Coastal Engineering" is perhaps in order here. It is not a new or separate branch of engineering and there is no implication intended that a new breed of engineer, and a new society, is in the making. Coastal Engineering is primarily a branch of Civil Engineering which leans heavily on the sciences of oceanography, meteorology, fluid mechanics, electronics, structural mechanics, and others. However, it is also true that the design of coastal works does involve many criteria which are foreign to other phases of civil engineering and the novices in this field should proceed with caution. Along the coastlines of the world, numerous engineering works in various stages of disintegration testify to the futility and wastefulness of disregarding the tremendous destructive forces of the sea. Far worse than the destruction of insubstantial coastal works has been the damage to adjacent shorelines caused by structures planned in ignorance of, and occasionally in disregard of, the shoreline processes operative in the area. The Council on Wave Research takes this opportunity to thank the authors of the papers and the many others who assisted in organization of the conference and in the preparation of this volume for publication.