limit of the study area). Similar to the northern end of Wrightsville 

 Beach, this section of Carolina Beach slowly accreted during the study 

 period with a maximum rate of 15 meters per year at the tip decreasing 

 to near zero at 22 kilometers. As shown in Figure 27, this area 

 responded naturally to storm-induced erosion and, consequently, no 

 beach fills were placed during the study period. The average seasonal 

 excursion was 12.8 meters for the northern section. 



The north-central section extends from the 22- to 23.5-kilometer 

 points and encompasses both the only significant change in beach 

 orientation along Carolina Beach and the northern end of the town of 

 Carolina Beach. This section suffered the highest measured annual 

 erosion rate of the entire study area, and estimates of that rate vary 

 between 5 to 40 meters per year. The range is large, and errors in the 

 estimation of the excursion rates from the excursion distance plots 

 probably account for some of the scatter in the rate values. Because of 

 the high erosion rates, and since the northern end of the town of 

 Carolina Beach is exposed to this erosion (see Fig. 4), six beach fills 

 were placed in this section between 1965 and 1971, three of which were 

 connected with the experimental deposition basin in the throat of 

 Carolina Beach Inlet. The excursion distance plots for CB64 (Fig. 28) 

 reveal rapid erosion after each beach fill and the continued loss of 

 beach material despite the beach-fill activities. The seasonal 

 excursion distance within this area is about 19.5 meters. 



The southern half of Carolina Beach experienced mild erosion rates 

 of approximately 5 meters per year. Beach fills in 1965 and 1971 

 provided protection to the southern end of the Carolina Beach township 

 because the net excursion in 1974 was still positive; i.e., more sand 

 was placed on the beach by the beach-fill projects than was eroded away 

 during the 1965-74 period. Figure 29 shows an example of the excess in 

 excursion distance for CB119 and also shows that the average seasonal 

 variation along this section is relatively small with a mean value of 

 approximately 7.6 meters. 



The long-term excursion rates for the entire beach are shown in 

 Table 10. The representative value of average annual excursion loss 

 along Carolina Beach due to the rise in sea level is 0.09 meter (see 

 Table 6). This value must be subtracted from the measured excursion 

 rates to determine the annual excursion loss due to longshore processes. 

 Representative values are given in Table 10, and a complete set along 

 Carolina Beach is plotted in Figure 30. 



Table 11 shows the average MLW, MSL, and MHW seasonal excursion 

 values for the entire beach and the relative differences in seasonal 

 variation between these contours. The average change in beach slope at 

 MSL from a summer profile to a winter profile was 0.2°, i.e., 1 on 286. 

 Figures 31 and 32 show the semilog plots of the normalized initial 

 excursion loss values versus time after fill placement for the 1965 and 

 1971 beach fills, respectively. Since there is a lack of data for the 

 1971 fill, all MLW, MSL, and MHW values from profile CB93 were combined 



54 



