maritime coastal facilities
  1. We are WSP
  2. What we do
  3. Transport & Infrastructure
  4. Maritime Industry
  5. Coastal Facilities

Coastal Facilities

Coastal management enables the development of creative and practical solutions for services such as shore protection, dredging, and the provision of infrastructure for water management to counter the effects of scour, siltation and erosion along our coastlines without affecting sensitive environments or communities.

Half the world's population lives within 60km of the sea, and three-quarters of all large cities are located along a major body of water. Commercial trade, tourism and development, natural phenomena and environmental protection are all factors affecting our coasts. Coastal facilities enable the development of creative and practical solutions to engineering challenges in marine environments. Understanding the dynamics of waterways, their shorelines, and the associated hydraulics and flow characteristics is critical to protection – and sustainable development – of our valuable water resources.

The proper repair of damaged waterways is essential to environmental protection and commercial pursuits. We provide the expertise and tools to identify, adapt, and integrate advanced solutions into systems that improve the performance and safety of ocean, coastal, and marine operations. In addition to tackling the challenges of climate change, onshore and offshore renewables, reclamation, and regeneration, we provide solutions to protect infrastructure, property, and people from severe weather events and other environmental risks, while focusing on creating sustainable built and natural environments for the future. Our approach includes physical and numerical modelling, visualisations tools, engineering analysis, technology development, as well as field work.

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Coastal facilities shore

Shore Protection and Resiliency

Coastlines are constantly exposed to waves, winds and various storm categories leading to erosion. As a result, the shoreside properties and infrastructure located  local to it are vulnerable to an encroaching shoreline. We can help you minimise chronic erosion and preserve your shoreline by developing adapted shore protection solutions to your natural environment. Our coastal engineers, scientists and biologists can develop resilient strategies to minimise erosion, including material source evaluation, intervention planning, design, construction and monitoring.

Dredging and Land Reclamation

Dredging and land reclamation

Dredging and Reclamation

We have an extensive, proven and established track record globally in providing advanced solutions for dredging and reclamation projects, including consultation, design and supervision. Traditional dredging activities centre around the construction and maintenance of ports and harbours as well as the dredging of rivers and navigation channels. Other applications of dredging technology have also become more important over the years, such as land reclamation, coastal defences, mineral mining and bespoke structures built for environmental enhancement.

Coastal Facilities Breakwaters

Breakwater in Calshot harbour, St Tristan da Cunha

Breakwaters

Our design philosophy begins with the crucial appreciation that in construction you must consider not only suitable and appropriate materials but also the methodology to be used, to enable a truly optimal solution to be devised. Breakwater construction can include dynamic berms or fixed vertical structures. Factors that affect the overall selection of the type of breakwater, whether rubble mound, monolithic or composite, can include the choice of materials, site conditions, construction techniques and the future maintenance regime for the structure. We also have established relationships with industry-recognized physical modelling laboratories which construct physical models and  allow design testing in simulated environments. This is crucial to delivering sustainable optimal breakwater designs.

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Intake and outfall pipelines

Intake and Outfall Pipelines

We have a proven track record in design and supervision of intake and outfall projects spanning decades of study and implementation. This covers the full spectrum of projects, from cooling water and desalination plants to industrial and domestic effluents. Based on characteristics of the receiving water body and outfall effluent, we use state-of-the-art tools to model effluent dilution and plume propagation. We can then optimise pipeline routes, recommend the most efficient diffuser, and assess impacts in the surrounding water, vulnerable habitats and coastal zones, including beach water quality where applicable.

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