Performance of an Upland Source Nourishment Project Honeymoon Island, Florida

Honeymoon Island is a barrier island located on the central Gulf coast of Florida. The history of the island demonstrates both natural and engineered changes in island shape and orientation that caused changes in the wave/tide equilibrium and in the sediment transport patterns along the Gulf shoreline. The first engineered change was the construction of the causeway connecting the island to the mainland (1962-63). The second was a large dredge and fill project (1969) consisting of mostly limestone rubble which essentially reoriented the Gulf shoreline and created a hardened shoreline. The third engineering project was a nourishment using iron-stained quartz sand from an upland source, completed in 1989. The shoreline orientation and inlet channel location causes much of the nourished reach of the island to have a high degree of tidal influence, whereas the remaining Gulf shoreline is wave dominated. Monitoring showed that the nourishment sediment moved as a unit toward the south. The majority of the sediment originally placed was accounted for by measuring beach profiles.