Groynes in Coastal Engineering a New Guide to Design, Construction, Monitoring, and Maintenance of Narrow Footprint Groynes

Groynes are cross shore structures designed to control coastal longshore transport that form significant elements of the coastal protection and flood defence schemes around the UK’s coast. Prompted by work to capture good practice in timber groyne management, an updated CIRIA guide has recently been published. Having briefly summarized the content of the guide, the paper goes on to examine in more detail some specific aspects where more significant innovations from research and from practice development have been identified. These include: timber groyne distribution around the UK; key factors in setting groyne lengths and spacings; designing for, and adapting to, beach profile fluctuations; ensuring the whole life and sustainability of timber groynes; developments in detailing of timber groyne joints and pile abrasion protection systems.