Briefing: The Breakwaters and Coastal Structures conference: what progress in 30 years?

The Institution of Civil Engineers ‘Breakwaters’ conference has been run for more than 30 years. The proceedings for each conference have presented both the papers and their discussions. This short briefing reviews changes in the ‘state of art’ in designing and constructing breakwaters and coastal structures as revealed by this series of ten conferences. The briefing highlights a number of key papers or reports part have made me most contribution to knowledge.