Student Research Reports

Our Research Question was How does moisture affect sand resistance to erosion by wind and waves? We choose this question because of the erosion problem in California, specifically at the beach. We understood the concept of what erosion is but wanted to go deeper into how it affects us and our environment. In order to investigate this we went to Malibu Lagoon Beach to collect data samples, there we observed how varying degrees of water saturation influenced the stability of the shoreline’s sediment. The data showed that moderate moisture content significantly increased sand cohesion, whereas completely dry sand was easily displaced by wind and overly saturated sand became unstable due to reduced friction. In conclusion we determined that moisture acts as a stabilizing “glue” up to a certain threshold, but beyond that point, it can actually facilitate erosion by allowing sand particles to shift and slump more freely.   `