Navigation Improvements, Mouth of the Colorado River, Texas

This paper describes an ongoing analysis of coastal and inlet processes at the mouth of the Colorado River Navigation Channel, Texas. A weir jetty system with impoundment basin down drift of the weir was constructed at the mouth of the Colorado River in 1985 to reduce the expected rate of dredging of the shallow-draft entrance navigation channel. The required rate of dredging has been about double the design estimate, however, due in part to diversion of the Colorado River away from its entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. A study is underway to better understand the processes involved, design a more efficient entrance, and provide the reduced dredging interval and volume originally desired, while placing the inlet processes within a regional sediment transport framework.