(0.4 mm median diameter) sand truck hauled from an inland source. The thickness
of the sand cover ranged from 0.5 m on the berm and to 0.9 m on the foreshore.
Kieslich and Brunt (1989) describe the beach fill, and Williams and Kraus (1999)
review the hydrodynamics and meteorology of Corpus Christi Bay. To the author'
s
knowledge, because of a policy change by the Federal Administration in the early
1980' , this fill may have been the last constructed by the Corps of Engineers with
s
recreational benefits as a major justification.
Portland
Aransas
Aransas
Nueces Bay
Nueces
Pass
Bay
Causeway
Bay
North
Port
Aransas
Corpus Christi
Beach
Aransas
Pass
Channel
Ship Channel
Port of
Corpus
Corpus Christi
Jetty
Christi
Gulf of
Corpus Christi
N
Mexico
Bay
Houston
TEXAS
W
E
Corpus
Oso
Christi
S
Study
Bay
Graphic Scale
Area
Upper
Gulf of
Laguna
0
5
Mexico
Kilometers
Madre
Fig. 6. Site location map for North Beach, Corpus Christi.
The beach fill was originally placed without a sand-retention structure on the
northern end. As a result, the northern end of the beach experienced an average-
annual loss of 9,200 m3 for the 5-year post-construction period, about 70% of the
total loss of the project (Kieslich and Brunt 1989). The loss on the northern end was
predominantly by spit genesis and elongation northward toward Nueces Bay.
Growth of the spit was documented annually or more frequently with vertical aerial
photography, supplemented by oblique views. By 1982, the spit had extended more
than 600 m to the north, where the Nueces Bay Causeway obstructed further lateral
movement, and the spit began to widen where it impinged on the causeway.
The aerial photographs were digitized to document the position of the shoreline
through time, yielding the location of the distal end and width of the spit. The photo-
graphs (of varying coverage) were scanned and rectified with at least three control
points obtained from among 11 established by differential GPS with horizontal
accuracy of 0.30 cm (standard deviation). Tidal range on this end of Corpus Christi
Bay is less than 20 cm from mean higher high water to mean lower low water.
Median wave height for non-calm events is about 0.3 m, and mean period is about
3 sec. Therefore, because wave runup and the tidal range are small, the wet-dry
boundary on aerial photographs can serve as a stable indicator of shoreline position.
Kraus
10
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