paulobrien

About Paul O'Brien

Mr. Paul O’Brien is a qualified Coastal Engineer with more than 30years’ experience in the planning, design and supervision of coastal engineering projects throughout Australia, Asia and the Pacific Region. His particular expertise is the practical application of state-of-the-art techniques and systems of foreshore protection and maritime engineering design in tropical and sub-tropical regions. Since many of these applications are in coastal areas having significant environmental, cultural, social and commercial values, Mr. O’Brien’s skills therefore incorporate extensive experience of developing appropriately sensitive solutions.

Beach Nourishment – A Panacea For Eroding Beaches?

Over the years, our coastal engineers have been responsible for the successful delivery of beach nourishment projects at locations throughout Australia, South East Asia and the Pacific Region. But just what is beach nourishment?

A strategy of beach nourishment entails the placement of sand directly onto a beach – either by using conventional earthmoving techniques or by pumping – so as to restore an adequate erosion buffer on the foreshore. The advantages of beach nourishment as an erosion management strategy […]

By |April 21st, 2014||

Seawalls – blight or remedy?

Seawalls are commonly used to provide a physical barrier to continuing shoreline recession.  Properly designed and constructed seawalls can be very effective in protecting foreshore assets by stopping any further shoreline recession.

However seawalls significantly interfere with natural beach processes by separating the active beach from sand reserves stored in beach ridges and dunes.  In other words, seawalls can protect property behind the wall, but they do not prevent in any way the erosion processes continuing on the beach in […]

By |April 12th, 2014||

Groynes – for what purpose?

Groynes are sometimes used as part of an erosion mitigation strategy on sandy beaches.  But how do they work… and are they effective?

The natural longshore transport of sand on an eroding shoreline can be impeded by constructing groynes across the active beach.  A groyne functions as a physical barrier by intercepting sand moving along the shore.  Sand is gradually trapped against the updrift side of the structure, resulting in a wider beach on this “supply-side” of the structure.  However […]

By |April 7th, 2014||