mouth of the Santa Ana River. This region is referred to as the Newport Lit- 

 toral Cell (Inman 1976, Hales 1984, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 1978, 1987). 

 The northern limit of the littoral cell is at Anaheim Bay, which acts as a 

 complete barrier to the movement of littoral material alongshore. The lit- 

 toral cell terminates at the Newport Submarine Canyon offshore of Newport 

 Beach. A littoral cell is defined as a coastal segment that contains a com- 

 plete sedimentation cycle including sources, transport paths, and sinks. The 

 Newport Littoral Cell satisfies these requirements; the sources are the feeder 

 beach located immediately east of Anaheim Bay (Surf side -Sunset Beach), and the 

 infrequent transport of sediment to the beach by the Santa Ana River to the 

 south of Huntington Beach. The transport path is the surf zone energized by 

 breaking waves, and the ultimate sinks to the southeast are the Newport Sub- 

 marine Canyon and the steeper nearshore bathymetry of the Newport region. 

 Other potential depositories of sand are beaches along the cell and the beach 

 profile in areas where extraction of oil has caused local subsidence 

 (Woodward -Clyde Consultants 1984, 1986). Beaches between Anaheim Bay and 

 Santa Ana River have accreted an average of 4.4 ft/year for the period 1934 to 

 1983. 



The approximately 10-mile-long shoreline reach from Anaheim Bay to the 

 Santa Ana River was modeled using a numerical model of shoreline change. 

 Coastal structures and features of importance within the model reach include 

 the east Anaheim Bay jetty, the sea cliffs at Huntington Beach, the Huntington 

 Beach pier, and the north jetty at the mouth of the Santa Ana River. Each of 

 these features influences the evolution of adjacent shorelines and was repre- 

 sented in the shoreline change model. The sea cliffs at Huntington Beach (a 

 remnant of a historical headland formerly extending seaward of the present 

 shoreline) serves to pin the shoreline between the cliffs and Anaheim Bay to 

 the northwest and the Santa River to the southeast. The Huntington Pier and 

 the east Anaheim Bay jetty modify the local breaking wave pattern and produce 

 a local shoreline signature unique to these structures. Prior to initiating 

 the numerical shoreline change simulations, considerable analysis of existing 

 physical data were performed as described in the next section. 



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