San Diego Beach Report: 2021

State Beach: Border Field • Silver Strand • Torrey Pines • Cardiff • San Elijo • Moonlight • Leucadia • South Carlsbad • Carlsbad

Product: Survey Coverage Map • Annual Summary • Seasonal Beach Width • Seasonal Volume Change

Summary of the observed evolution of the annual average beach width, and beach & nearshore sediment volumes.

Beach years that included significant El Nino winters are highlighted in red.

Annual results are only calculated for years with at least one summer or fall survey, and at least one winter or spring survey. Any additional survey results from gap years can be seen in the "Seasonal Beach Width" product.

The beach width (black line) is the alongshore averaged distance from a prescribed back beach line to the the mean sea level shoreline location.

Beach and Nearshore sand volumes are calculated relative to a prescribed reference surface (the lowest observed elevation surface derived from all surveys). The volumes represent the "known to be mobile" volume of sand, but only a portion of this sand migrates in a typical year.

The beach volume is the volume of subaerial sand between the back beach line and the (migrating) mean sea level shoreline location. Airborne LiDAR, Truck LiDAR, and GPS ATV surveys can be used to estimate beach volumes.

The nearshore volume (if shown) is the volume of sand between the back beach line and approximately 8m water depth. GPS Jet-Ski surveys are required to estimate nearshore volumes.

Episodic sand nourishment and annual inlet bypass sand volumes (magenta line) are from the SANDAG Regional Beach Monitoring Annual Reports.

Beach nourishments typically place the sand directly on the subaerial beach, while sand bypassing typically places sand in shallow water south of the inlets.