Chesapeake Bay: Headland Control Systems Performance Including Hurricane Isabel

Headland Control is a unique shoreline management technique whereby existing geomorphic features (i.e. headlands) are enhanced with large stone breakwaters and/or the breakwaters are strategically placed alongshore to create headlands. These enhanced or created shore headlands are widely spaced for economy, and the adjacent coasts are allowed to continue to erode toward an equilibrium shore position where a wide, stable, and protective sand beach becomes vegetated and forms a low dune. The final equilibrium planform is a large pocket beach whose dimensions will depend on the amount of sand that will come to reside in the evolving embayment. Headland Control is applicable to long reaches of agricultural or unmanaged shore land since protecting the entire property is very expensive per linear foot. Three sites where this method of shore management was implemented are discussed in terms of shore planform prediction, overall shore change, and storm response.