David Hubbard

During the 2016's El Nio, beaches like the one below Camino Majorca in Isla Vista lost high amounts of sand.

Dry El Nio Proved Devastating to CaliforniaBeaches

The last El Nio proved a bust for rain, but for wave-generated beach depletion, it was a boom. A paper published on Valentines Day in Nature Communications looked at 29 beaches along 1,200 miles of Pacific Coast during 2015-2016. Wintertime erosion was 76 percent above normal as seen on 3-D surface maps, aerial LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), GPS topographic surveys, and direct sand quantity measurements by a U.S. Geological Survey team that included UCSBs DavidHubbard.

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DaveHubbard

Wave conditions and coastal response were unprecedented for many locations, said lead author Patrick Barnard, a geologist with the USGS. The winter wave energy equaled or exceeded measured historical maximums along the West Coast. On the other hand, rain gauges registered 70 percent less, which was actually a contributing factor in beachlosses.

The lack of rainfall means the coastal rivers produced very little sand to fill in what was lost from the beaches, so recovery has been slow, Barnard said. The study also found that beach condition prior to the storm season one of the strongest in the past 145 years predicted whether erosion would be extreme ornot.

According to Hubbard, who is an ecologist at UCSBs Marine Science Institute, climate change may increase El Nio events, possibly twofold. First we need to understand the challenges, and those include the rising sea level and the fact that most of the problems occur during these peak El Nio events, Hubbard said. Then we need to restore or manage our coasts in ways that will enable us to deal with these events and conserve beach ecosystems. I think thats the challenge that we as a society have toaddress.

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No Rain, No Beach - The Santa Barbara Independent - Santa Barbara Independent