Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii - An Urban Beach Chronology of Significant Events, 1825-2005

摘要

This paper presents a chronology of important events related to Waikiki Beach. It is based on a long-term and extensive study by the author (Wiegel 2002), and a lecture given at the 2002 California Shore and Beach Preservation Association and Association of Coastal Engineers joint conference in San Francisco, CA. Waikiki is a beach of world renown, on the leeward side of Oahu, Hawaii, in the southeast sector, facing the ocean toward the southwest. It is a narrow beach of carbonate sand, several miles long, fronted by a gently sloping fringing coral reef a few thousand feet wide. It is an urban beach. Most of the shore is publicly owned, and all of the land below a measure of the high tide line is publicly owned, and accessible. The several segments of the Waikiki beaches are narrow, and the sand is shallow - the limestone under the sand is probably at about -2 ft MLLW. It has been estimated that the quantity of sand is only about 90,000 yd~3. Shallow patches of sand only a few feet thick are on the reef flat. The native sand on the beach and reef was created, and transformed on the reef by biochemical, bio-erosion, and mechanical processes. Most of the sand now on Waikiki Beach and its extension through Ala Moana Beach Park has been brought from other locations on Oahu and Molokai - for beach nourishment, and for beach construction - by placing it on top of a base made of crushed coral rock dredged from the nearshore.