Functional and environmental design of detached, low crest level breakwaters

The research work as presented in this article covers the design of detached breakwaters since they constitute a type of coastal defense work with which to combat many of the erosion problems found on beaches in a stable, sustainable fashion. The main aim of this work is to formulate a functional and environmental (non structural) method of design enabling the fundamental characteristics of a detached breakwater to be defined as a function of the effect it is wished to induce on the coast whilst meeting social demands and preserving or improving the quality of the littoral environment. The general applicability of the method is also sought by means of considering relations between variables od different natures (climatic, geomorphologic and geometric) influencing the changes experienced on the coast after the detached breakwater has been built. The study of the relations between the different variables is carried out on the data from a abase of nineteen actual, existing detached breakwaters on the Spanish Mediterranean coastline and follows a methodology based on the implementation of non-dimensional monomials and on a search for relations of dependency between them. Finally, a discussion on the results obtained lead to a proposal for a design method that uses some of the graphic relations found between the variables studied with which the aforesaid main objective is achieved. (Author) 9 refs.