Discussion of: Munoz-Perez, J.J.; Tejedor, L., and Medina, R., 1999. Equilibrium Beach Profile Model for Reef Protected Beaches. Journal of Coastal Research, 15(4), 950-957.

Abstract

We found this paper to be intensely interesting since the topic of the impact of offshore reef structures on the shape of the landwards beach has been of great concern to us, since we first detected the occurrence of local erosion "hot-spots" on our Gold Coast Australia beaches during two major cyclonic attacks in 1972, and also from every other storm erosive event since. Our Gold Coast beaches are predominantly sediment rich, but we do have 6 to 9 nearshore reef structures, generally cresting at their mean seabed levels and with exposed areas of an acre or two, that imprint an indelible erosion response upon the visible beach, landwards to each site. In every case, we have deduced that the submerged exposed reef structures are the cause of the hot-spots, so we should like to add to the author's paper by reporting our own local experiences and observations with exposed seabed reef structures. Some of our conclusions seem to agree with the author's findings, but some do not, so these we report accordingly, noting along the way, however, that we monitor our beach every day, giving now, 11 years of data. We also log the beach variability itself per day, as far as is possible, in shape, width, slope, behavior and changes of all the wave climate, that drive all the beach variabilities in the first place.