Figure 3. Panama City Harbor, Florida, showing jetty extensions constructed to prevent additional
erosion.
Flanking is the action of breaching the thin neck of sand, created by cutting back of the inner bank
towards the ocean beach. A breakthrough from the inner-bank erosion area to the ocean shoreline
could potentially occur during a storm with high water level and large waves. Often, at the end of
the jetty extension or revetment, erosion reoccurs. The author noted this commonly occurring
recession of the inner bank of an inlet by examination of aerial photographs at jetty structures on all
United States coasts, including the Great Lakes.
BACKGROUND
The manner in which inner-bank erosion is initiated and evolves can be assumed to be related to
either the attack on the shoreline by currents (due to tide or river flows), short-period wave action, or
a combination of both. For this study, it was hypothesized that this erosion process develops over
time similar to that of the logarithmic spiral plan-view shape of headland-bay beaches (LeBlond
3
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