The Public’s Radio — ‘I have real concern’: URI coastal scientist tracks decades of coastal erosion data

Erosion at South Kingstown Town Beach.  Credit:  JP Walsh

May 29, 2024

By Luis Hernandez — Severe storms and rising sea-levels are reshaping Rhode Island’s shoreline in dramatic ways. As part of our ongoing series on coastal erosion, Morning Host Luis Hernandez spoke with J.P. Walsh, a coastal scientist at the University of Rhode Island, who is trying to quantify just how much beach we’ve lost in recent decades.

Editor’s note: This story is part of “Washout: Our vanishing beaches,” a series about the reshaping of Rhode Island’s shoreline. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

TRANSCRIPT:

LUIS HERNANDEZ: Professor Walsh, it’s a pleasure. Thanks so much.

J.P. WALSH: Nice to meet you. 

HERNANDEZ: Professor, how different do our beaches look right now after the winter storm? Because that’s the thing a lot of people are thinking about. 

WALSH: Yeah, well, so we had a tough winter with a number of storms like normal, but we had some particularly strong storms this winter that really took a toll along our shoreline. When we actually measure the change, the beach itself, like the position of the shoreline today, is in many ways similar to places last fall, but we saw a lot of erosion of either the dunes or the bluff at the upper edge of the beach because we had these really big storms that had high water level and large waves that eroded the upper boundary of the beach. 

HERNANDEZ: So what can you tell us about the last few decades? How much has our shoreline changed in that time? 

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