BEACH NOURISHMENT mitigates beach erosion and reduces property damage by placing sediment on the beach and subaqueous nearshore zone. A designed beachnourishment project is called a beach fill. Beach fills have been used world wide and are becoming increasingly popular because they generate significant economic gains. Wider beaches produce increased recreational usage and increased development protection from coastal flooding and stormwave damage. In addition, beach nourishment avoids possible problems of downdrift erosion produced by structures. As a beach fill erodes, it provides material to downdrift beaches, providing additional benefits. Downdrift benefits are the source of the Dutch observation' that:
"... one has to conclude that artificial beach nourishment has from a financial point of view, a very big advantage. It is in fact an investment on which one has hardly any risk. Every grain of nourished sand is effective. Artificial beach nourishment may prove to be somewhat cheaper or more expensive than anticipated, but what has been invested is not lost." The National Research Council recently concluded that beach nourishment is a viable engineering alternative for shore protection, is the principal technique for beach restoration, and can provide protection from coastal storm and flood damage.

Beach nourishment reduces coastal flooding and storm damage, and increases recreation benefits. Flooding and stormdamage reduction due to increased beach width and dune heights has been widely reported for both hurricanes and extratropical storms. Damage data following Hurricane Eloise show average damage costs suffered by structures increase rapidly with structure shoreline proximity. Beach nourishment can reduce damage by increasing structure distance from the shoreline. For example, damage surveys following Hurricane Hugo in 1989 show that a beach fill placed in 19861987 at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, provided protection. Surveys showed less damage in fillprotected areas than adjacent areas. As a beach narrows, its recreation benefits drop. For example, before the Miami Beach, Florida, beachrestoration project in the late 1970's the infrastructure of the city had deteriorated markedly because the narrow beach was not attractive to recreationalbeach users. After the beach was nourished, beach attendance increased from 8 million in 1978 to 21 million in 1983. Part of this increase is attributable to provisions in this Federal sponsored project that mandated increased public access including public parking and facilities. The large increase in beach users provided the economic incentive to restore Miami Beach's infrastructure. Today, Miami Beach has more than twice as many tourist visits as the combined tourist visits to Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite National Parks. Miami Beach has 2 million overseas tourists a year who spend $2 billion. This income from overseas tourists alone is remarkably greater than the $3 million annual capitalized cost of the fill.

The economic importance of beaches is becoming evident as the world economy moves increasingly toward service industries.