the.com/seawall
a concrete bet that the ocean will respect your property line.
means A barrier built along a shoreline to hold back the sea and protect the land behind it from waves and erosion.
from A plain English compound of "sea" and "wall," both ancient Germanic words — "sea" from Old English sǣ, "wall" from weall, the latter borrowed early from Latin vallum, the rampart of stakes a Roman legion threw up around its camp. So buried in the word is the old idea of a defensive fortification — except here the enemy at the gate is the tide.
- sea level
- rising faster than most seawalls were designed for
- side effect
- protects one beach by starving the next
- ancient version
- Caesarea's Roman harbor used self-setting volcanic concrete
- erosion irony
- reflected waves scour sand from the wall's base
- netherlands
- a third of the nation sits behind such walls
singapore's east coast seawall — 8.5 km barrier protecting singapore's densest residential area from storm surge and rising seas
rotterdam's maeslant barrier — massive movable storm surge barrier in netherlands, completed 1997, protects rotterdam from north sea flooding
thames barrier london — 10 steel gates across thames completed 1984, prevents north sea storm surge flooding into london