Beneficial Reuse of Dredged Material & Beach Nourishment:

Utilizing a "system-based approach", dredged sediment is managed to gain maximum benefit from limited sand supplies. Placement of beach suitable material within the nearshore region helps in maintaining the health of beaches along our Great Lake shorelines. Figure 1 illustrates a typical method used in placing sediment dredged from a harbor along the shoreline. A sand/water slurry is hydraulically pumped from the lake bottom to the beach through a pipe. Once the material is allowed to dry, bulldozer are typically used to manicure the placed sediment so that the beach is usable (Figure 2). Placement of dredged sediment in the Great Lakes restablishes littoral transport around structures to help maintaing the health of the as opposed to engineering beaches.

Sediment Budget Analysis System (SBAS) is useful for determining sediment quantities within the nearshore system. Utilizing other tools, such as Hydrosed, eCoastal, and COSMOS, SBAS can provide invaluable data on beach placement of dredged sediment. Figure 3 show how SBAS is used to account for sediment within a sediment budget.