Waikiki Beach, Oahu, Hawaii: History of its transformation from a ...

Shore & Beach Vol. 76, No. 2 Spring 2008 Page 3

Waikiki is a beach of world re-nown in Honolulu, Hawaii onthe leeward side of the semi-

tropical high island of Oahu (Figure 1).The beach is narrow, composed of a thinlayer of carbonate sand, several mileslong, and fronted by a gently slopingfringing coral reef a few thousand feetwide. The beach faces southwest, towardthe bight of Mamala Bay. With its mildclimate and warm ocean water, Waikikiis favorable for outdoor activities all year,including sunbathing, swimming, surfing,outrigger canoeing, and snorkeling. Thebeach, reef, and sea are popular with resi-dents and with visitors.

Waikiki has been extensively changedfrom a nearly natural shore to an inten-sively used urban beach during the pastcentury. “Waikiki Beach originally wasa barrier beach between Ala Wai-Moiliili

Waikiki Beach, Oahu, Hawaii:History of its transformation

from a natural to an urban shoreBy

Robert L. WiegelProfessor Emeritus

Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.University of California

Berkeley, CA 94720-1718

Waikiki, in Honolulu, Hawaii is a narrow beach that has beenmodified extensively. This history from a coastal engineeringperspective is of the shore between Kewalo Basin and the ElksClub near Diamond Head. The beach and reef are exposed towaves from the south, with good surfing sites. A century ago,most of the shore was a narrow, thin ribbon of carbonate sandlying between wetlands, mudflats, duck ponds, fishponds, anda gently sloping fringing reef a few thousand feet wide. Notmuch sand was in the beach or the thin patches of sand on thereef. Several small streams flowed into the sea. The first en-croachment onto the beach with buildings and other worksoccurred in the 1880s and 1890s — a few homes, several bath-houses, and small hotels, some built partly on piles. Seawalls,groins, and several piers were constructed. The Natatoriumwas built from shore 200 feet onto the reef in 1927. The AlaWai Canal and Ala Wai Yacht Harbor were also constructed.Of great importance was the removal of many truckloads ofsand from the premises of Queen Lili’uokalani circa 1909, andthe dredging of sand, coral rubble, and rock from the reef forfill of portions of the wetlands at Fort DeRussy in 1909. A

dredge was used to clear a channel through the reef to the shore-line, and then parallel to the shore. In 1913, additional dredg-ing was done to permit a 69-ton coast artillery gun to be broughtby barge to the reservation. Channels, basins, and ponds havebeen dredged in the reef for several purposes; they front aboutone-half of the shore. These have caused changes in wave andcurrent action, and in the transport and deposition of sand andsilt. Much of the sand now on the beach segments betweenDiamond Head and Ala Moana Beach Park has been broughtfrom other locations in Hawaii for beach fill, or for construct-ing a beach by placing sand on top of a base made of crushedcoral rock dredged from the nearshore. Also, sand was dredgedin 2000 and in 2006 from small deposits on the reef, pumpedto shore at Kuhio Beach, and distributed along the section ofbeach which is protected by a shore-parallel breakwater (cribwall), elevation about MLLW, and groins connected to shore.Since Duke Kahanamoku’s comments in the 1930s, guidelinesgoverning beach nourishment have been to preserve the break-ers for surfboarding, provide a sand blanket to cover the in-shore coral, and stabilize a dry beach for sunbathing.

ABSTRACT

ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS:Ala Wai Canal, beach construction,beach erosion, beach nourishment,beach rehabilitation, carbonatesand, dredging, fill, fishponds, FortDeRussy, groins, marina, mosquitocontrol, Natatorium, reef, sandpumping, seawalls, shorelineboundary, surfing, wetlands.

Paper submitted 9 July 2007, re-vised and accepted 15 November2007.

duckponds and swamps and the ocean”(Moberly et al. 1963). Waikiki bears littleresemblance to what it was in the 1880sand 1890s, or even in the 1910s and1920s. Compare what can be seen in re-cent and historic photographs (Figures

1, 2, and 3). Historic photos may befound in the collections of the BishopMuseum Archives, the U.S. Army Mu-seum of Hawaii, and in several books(Brown 1985; Hibbard and Franzen1986; Grant 1996). Coastal works andother events related to this transforma-tion are listed in the “Chronology of Sig-nificant Coastal Events at Waikiki, 1825-2007” (updated from Wiegel 2002;2005), which is appended to this paper.

This paper is an abbreviation of a re-port by the author (Wiegel 2002), withsome updates. The report was based oninformation from more than 200 references,many photographs, maps and charts, writ-ing to and talking with people, and personalknowledge. The report identifies coastalengineering data, where they can be ob-tained, and presents examples of data. It isin several parts: anthropogenic and natural

Shore & Beach Vol. 76, No. 2 Spring 2008Page 4

Figure 1. Waikiki Beach,, Oahu, Hawaii. Aerial photo, 24 January 1998; between Ala Wai Yacht Harbor (left) and SansSouci (Kaimana) Beach (right). (By R.L. Wiegel, #8878.)

events at Waikiki and their effects on shoreand coastal processes; beach erosion con-trol studies; beach restoration and sandsources for beach nourishment and con-struction; and features of the several sec-tions of the shore and beach; beach andreef sand (including details of carbonatesand formation and transformation), waves,tides, currents (including rip currents),bathymetry and profiles. Owing to lengthlimitations, many of the details on sandsources, waves, tides, currents (includingrip currents), bathymetry, and beach pro-files are not included in this paper. For ex-ample, the SHOALS survey of bathymetrymade in August 2000 (USACE MobileDistrict 2002) is not included.

PLACE NAMES OFWAIKIKI BEACH ANDCONTIGUOUS SHORE

“Waikiki Beach” originally referred tothe beach between Fort DeRussy and thenorthwest end of the causeway leadingfrom the city to Kapiolani Park, the “Dia-mond Head side” (Engineering Commit-tee on Waikiki Beach Improvement1927; Appendix 1 of USACE HonoluluDistrict 1950). This causeway was partof Waikiki Road, which was renamedKalakaua Avenue in 1905 (Hibbard and

Franzen 1986). For coastal engineeringreasons, the original Waikiki Beach andthe contiguous shore at both sides is con-sidered here. This includes Kewalo Ba-sin and its entrance channel on the “Ewaside,” and San Souci (Kaimana),Outrigger Canoe Club, and Elks ClubBeach at the “Diamond Head side.” Thisis the same region written about in “TheWaikiki Beach Story,” an article in Shore& Beach by Wachter (1958), then Super-intendent of Public Works and chairmanof the Board of Harbor Commissioners,Territory of Hawaii. A history of the placenames is in the book Beaches of O’ahuby Clark (1977).

Names and locations of the severalsections are given in Figure 4. A fewbeach names at the “Diamond Head side”of Waikiki Beach in USACE reports toCongress (U.S. Congress 1953; 1963)differ from those given in Wachter(1958), and Clark (1977).

Queen’s Surf Beach is located on Fig-ure 4 between the Queen’s Surf stormdrain/groin and the Natatorium. It isshown in parentheses,as the name is usedon some maps (U.S. Congress 1965;Clark 1977; Gerritsen 1978; Edward K.Noda & Associates Inc. 1991), but not

on others. Clark (1977) says this beachis part of Kapi’olani Regional Park, atthe western side of the Park Beach Cen-ter, and is named after a restaurant-night-club which was there from 1946 until itwas demolished in 1971; it was in a con-verted oceanfront mansion. It was namedafter the famous Waikiki surfing break,Queen’s Surf. However, this surf site isoff Kuhio Beach (Walker 1974; EdwardK. Noda & Associates 1991); the nameof the surfing break off Queen’s SurfBeach is Publics. Wachter (1958), in thecaption of an aerial photo of the site andin the text of his paper, refers to the seg-ment between the groin and the Natato-rium as Kapiolani Park Beach, which hecalled “Waikiki’s newest beach.” TheAAA map of Honolulu (2006) shows theentire shore between the Kapahulu stormdrain/groin and the Natatorium asKapiolani Beach Park, and the U.S.Geolgical Survey map labels itKapi’olani Park Beach; no segment islabeled Queen’s Surf Beach.

Figure 1 is a 1998 aerial photo of mostof the extended Waikiki Beach. The sec-tion between Ala Wai Yacht Harbor is onthe left, and Sans Souci (Kaimana) Beachis on the right. Figure 5 is a photo look-


ing toward Diamond Head. The RoyalHawaiian-Moana Hotels Beach is in theforeground, and Kuhio Beach, with thecrib wall breakwater (known as the “slip-pery wall,” Clark 1977) at top center.Figure 6 is a 1986 oblique aerial photofrom offshore Diamond Head, with theElks Club, Outrigger Canoe Club Beach,and Sans Souci (Kaimana) beaches nearthe bottom right of the photo; the Nata-torium and Kapiolani Park Beach/Queen’s Surf Beach at the center; andKuhio Beach Park at top left.

Figure 7 is an aerial photo from 1999of Magic Island (Aina Moana) at the left,Ala Wai Canal entrance channel and AlaWai Yacht Harbor at left center, DukeKahanamoku Beach and Lagoon andFort DeRussy Beach at top right and cen-ter right. Figure 8 is an aerial photo from1998 of Kewalo Basin at the left side,Ala Moana Beach Park and dredgedchannel in front of the beach at the cen-ter, and the west side of Magic Island(Aina Moana) at the top right.

Waikiki hosts several shorefrontparks. These include Kewalo Basin StatePark, Ala Moana Beach Park, Magic Is-land (Aina Moana State RecreationArea), Fort DeRussy Beach Park, KuhioBeach Park, and Kapiolani Park Beach.

CARBONATE SANDWaikiki beaches are narrow, as can be

seen in the photographs. What is not ap-parent is that the sand cover is thin andshallow — the limestone bedrock underthe sand is probably at about -2 feetMLLW. Several reports mention that sea-walls at Waikiki were built on a coralfoundation with the coral bed close to lowwater (e.g., Engineering Association ofHawaii 1927; Crane 1972; Noda 1991).Professor Ralph Moberly of the Univer-sity of Hawaii (1968; 2001) estimated thequantity of sand on Waikiki Beach in1968 to be about 70,000 cubic meters(92,000 cubic yards). This was in thereach from the San Souci area (KapuaChannel) to the seawall west of the RoyalHawaiian Hotel. Shallow patches of sandonly a few feet thick are on the reef flat.As part of an ecological survey of the reefin the early 1970s, the type of bottom wasclassified as sand, rubble, limestone, livecoral, etc. (Chave et al. 1973). It wasestimated that 36% of the bottom insidethe reef crest (approximately the 1-fathom depth contour), and 39% outside,were sand substrate. There is not muchsand on the beach or reef. However, hardbottom shoals on the reef flat are impor-tant for surfing.

The native sand on the beach and reef

was created and transformed on the reefby biochemical, bioerosion, and me-chanical processes (e.g. Moberly et al.1965; Stearns 1938; USACE 1950; U.S.Congress 1953; Gerritsen 1978). Detailsmay be found in Wiegel (2002). Moberlyet al. (1965) say: “It is rather a misno-mer to speak of ‘coral sand’ as coral is apoor fifth in general order” of sand com-ponents in Hawaii’s carbonate beaches.Native sand on Waikiki Beach and mostother Oahu beaches is carbonate, withconstituents in the order of abundancebeing: foraminifera, mollusks, red algae,echinoids, corals, and Halimeda (e.g.,Moberly et al. 1965). There does notappear to be sand in the Waikiki Beachlittoral system from the local streams,except for a trivial amount (U.S. Con-gress 1953; Gerritsen 1978).

Analyses of four samples of sand fromthe intertidal zone of the beach in Waikiki(exact locations not given) in July 2000had a different order of abundance thangiven above (Hampton et al. 2002), withcoral and coralline algae being the mostabundant. However, much of the sand inrecent years on Waikiki Beach and itsextension through Ala Moana BeachPark, has been brought from other loca-tions on Oahu and Molokai - for beachnourishment, and for beach construction,


Figure 2.Waikiki, Oahu,Hawaii. Aerial

photo, 9September 1920,

lookinglandward over

shore; taropatches, rice

paddies.Apuakehau

Stream mouth(almost closed

by beach sand),Moana Hotel

and pier incenter. (U.S.

Army Museumof Hawaii,

USAMH No.1716.)

where sand is placed on top of a basemade of crushed coral rock dredged fromthe nearshore (Wiegel 2002). Examplesof beach nourishment may be seen atKuhio Beach and Kapiolani Park/Queen’s Surf Beach. Examples of con-structed beaches are at Ala Moana Beachand Fort DeRussy Beach. In 1970, leg-islation was passed making it illegal tomine sand from beaches in the state ofHawaii after 1975 (Campbell andMoberly 1978).

When Horton (1948) inspected theWaikiki Beach area prior to the majorbeach fills, he noted the sand grains weremostly cream colored and light tan. Closeinspections of the sand made by the au-thor walking on the beach in recent years,found that the sand appeared to be simi-lar in color.

FRINGING REEF — SURFINGAND OUTRIGGER CANOEINGThe sport of surfing, or surf-riding,

was revived and became popular in theearly 1900s. Modern surfing essentiallystarted at Waikiki. Locations of the surf-ing sites at Waikiki are shown in Figure9. Surfboards became long and heavy,with the modern lighter and more maneu-verable boards being developed aboutfifty years later. The legendary greatOlympic athlete Duke Kahanamoku in-troduced the 10-foot long surfboard inabout 1910. The Outrigger Canoe Clubwas established in 1908 (Grant 1996),and the clubhouse/boat house built at theedge of the beach at the mouth of theApuakehau Stream just west of the

Moana Hotel. It housed several hundredupright surfboard lockers filled withboards of all sizes and colors (Blake1955, in Dixon 1966). It closed when theclub moved to its new building nearKaimana (Sans Souci) Beach at the endof 1963 (Clark 1977).

Jack London visited Waikiki in 1900,where he learned to surf. He describedvividly how he learned, the dangers as-sociated with surfing, and his enjoymentof what he called “a Royal sport” in hisbook The Cruise of the Snark (1911, asreproduced in Blake 1966).

A detailed presentation of technicalinformation about surfing is in the ex-tensive report by James R. (“Kimo”)Walker: Recreational Surf Parameters(1974). One of Walker’s observations isthat the majority of “surf shoals” (wherewaves transform and break) in Hawaii are“comprised of coral, basalt, and beachrock, which remain essentially stableunder wave attack; while sand shoals mayshift with changing wave conditions.”Details of two of the popular surfing siteson the reef at Waikiki are given, one isQueen’s off Kuhio Beach; both are atcoral bottom shoals that remain stable.As mentioned elsewhere, in planning andimplementing beach restoration, modifi-cation, and nourishment, it is necessaryto preserve the surfing breaks.

STREAMS FLOWEDTO THE SEA AT WAIKIKI

A century ago, most of the shore wasa narrow ribbon of carbonate sand be-

tween wetlands and the wide fringingreef, and there were mud flats where AlaMoana Beach Park was constructed. Thesubsurface geology of this coastal plainis a complicated mix of horizons/lensesof lagoonal deposits, marsh deposits,sand and coralline debris, coral ledges,alluvium, cemented sand, cinder, clinker,tuff, and basalt (Ferrall 1976; Noda1994). Several streams flowed into thesea, as shown on the 1907 map by Dove(Figure 10). An aerial photo taken in1920 (Figure 2) shows ApuakehauStream at the center left (almost closed),and the Moana Hotel and pier. Rice pad-dies, taro patches, duck ponds, and fishponds can be seen in this photo and inhistoric photos in the Bishop Museum.Several are reproduced in the book byHibbard and Franzen (1986).

One of the historic photos of streams atthe beach is shown in Figure 3a lookinginland from the mouth of Ku’ekaunahiStream in 1886, at what is now KuhioBeach. An old postcard, circa 1912, showsthe Apuakehau Stream to the left of theMoana Hotel and pier (Figure 3b) Note thatthe stream mouth is closed.

Several streams are shown enteringthe sea on Bishop’s (1881) modified mapof Waikiki (1881, 1888, 1922, 1952): thePi’inaio at the west side of where FortDeRussy is now; the Apuakehau betweenwhat is now the locations of the Moanaand Royal Hawaiian Hotels; and theKu’ekaunahi (labeled “HamohamoStream” on Dove’s map) at Kuhio Beach.Note that on Bishop’s map the Hawaiian


Figure 3a (above). Ku’ekaunahi Stream, looking inland from mouth, 1886. (A.Mitchell, Bishop Museum, Neg. No. CP 56428.)

Figure 3b (below). Historic postcard, circa 1912, Apuakehau Stream to left ofMoana Hotel and pier; note stream mouth closed. (Island Curio Co., Jas.Steiner, Honolulu.)

words “muliwai,” which means estuary,and “loko,” which means fish pond areused. A copy of this map may be foundin Wiegel (2002), but is not reproducedherein (a modified version is in Hibbardand Franzen 1986).

In addition to fresh water flow ontothe reef, during heavy rainfall and flood-ing events the streams transported largeamounts of silt and clay to the shore. ThePacific Commercial Advertiser (May1913) quotes G.H. Buttolph of theOutrigger Canoe Club:

“...during each freshet in Moana Val-ley or higher in the hills the flood watersare carried in torrents down the stream,bringing debris and mud in much quan-tity (sic, and) the beach is fouled anduninviting. The surf for some distance oneach side of the mouth of the stream isgenerally muddy and uninviting to bath-ers.... Last Sunday I went to the beachwith some tourist friends...and found thewater as thick as mud. It was disagree-able to look at, and certainly an offen-sive place for swimming.”

A similar comment was made byKinau Wilder (1978) in her book Wildersof Waikiki; her family home was on thebeachfront. Wiegel (2002) contains acopy of an aerial photo in color taken bythe author about a week after an extremerainfall event showing the turbid water

on the reef a few miles east of DiamondHead, also illustrating this phenomenon.

It was suggested that ApuakehauStream be diverted into the lagoon inKapiolani Park, and then into the seathrough a sluice gate (Pacific Commer-cial Advertiser May 1913). In 1914 it wasrecommended that “one of the streamsbe blocked, and then, from the end of theother, a pipe be run out well beyond thereef...” (Honolulu Star Bulletin 1914).Neither of these projects were imple-

mented. Rather, the Ala Wai Canal, drain-ing, wetlands reclamation and mosquitocontrol projects were completed in the1920s.

ENCROACHMENTAND SAND REMOVAL

Vegetation grows rapidly in this cli-mate, and the bare sand beach was natu-rally narrow. The beach was encroachedupon by people building homes, otherstructures, and landscaping, Figure 11.The postcard photo (circa 1910) shown


Figure 4. Map of Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii; names of sectors added to USGStopographic map, edited 1983 (adapted from U.S. Geological Survey).

Figure 5. Royal Hawaiian and Moana Hotels Beach, with Kuhio Beach at topcenter; 24 June 1986. (By R.L. Wiegel, #5894.)

in Figure 12, is of the Seaside Hotel(opened in 1906), its lawn and seawall,and a narrow beach. This was at the siteof the present Royal Hawaiian Hotel.Historic photos of buildings and seawallsare in the Bishop Museum Photo Col-lection, and in the books by Hibbard andFranzen (1986), Brown (1985), andGrant (1996).

Owing to encroachment, much of thebeach at Waikiki disappeared from viewunder structures and landscaping, withsome excavated for foundation prepara-tion (e.g. at the Royal Hawaiian Hoteland at the present Outrigger Canoe Clubbuilding).

As mentioned in a previous section,there is a mix of geologic horizons/lensesin the Waikiki area. Major problems oc-curred during the construction of theRoyal Hawaiian Hotel. A large part ofthe building started to sink into theswampy soil, and a significant redesignand construction modification was re-quired, doubling the cost of the hotel(Cohen 1999; Peralta, 2002).

Large quantities of sand were re-moved many years ago from Waikiki. In1910 the Pacific Commercial Advertiserreported on a meeting of the Hawaii Pro-motion Committee — the article’s head-line was:

“Spoiling the Waikiki Beach. HowHonolulu’s World-famous Bathing Re-sort is Being Ruined. Heavy Removal ofSand.”

According to the article:

“...thousands of loads of sand removedfrom the Waikiki Beach stretches havecaused the present deplorable condition ofthe bathing beaches.... Much of the enor-mous amount of sand was removed fromthe premises of Queen Liliuokalani. In ad-dition ... the federal government is also re-moving large quantities of sand to be usedfor construction purposes. The removal ofsand should be stopped. The accumulationsof centuries and the contour of the beachformed in centuries was being marred bythe sand removals of the present day.... Aletter will be written to Major Winslow,Corps of Engineers, U.S.A., and to theLiliuokalani Estate, asking them if theycould not get sand elsewhere than on thebeach frontages.”

At a later date, owing in part to en-croachment onto the beach and removal


Figure 6. Waikiki Beach; aerial photo from offshore Diamond Head, 16 January1986: Elks Club and Outrigger Canoe Club (at bottom of photo), Sans Souci(Kaimana) Beach, Natatorium, Kapiolani Park, Queen’s Surf Beach, and KuhioBeach (top). (By R.L. Wiegel, #5581.)

of sand, it was decided to bring sand tothe shore from other areas for beachnourishment. Projects where this wasdone are described subsequently. Forpossible future work, offshore sources ofsand have been investigated (Cascianoand Palmer 1969; Moberly Jr. andCampbell 1969, revised 1972; MoberlyJr., Campbell, and Coulbourn 1975; Ed-ward K. Noda and Associates, Inc. June1991; Sullivan and Bodge 2000).

DREDGED CHANNELSAND BASINS IN THE REEF

Channels, basins, and ponds havebeen dredged in the reef for reasons in-cluding to obtain fill material, for navi-gation, for small craft harbors, and forswimming and sea bathing. About one-half of the shore between Kewalo Basinon the northwest (“Ewa”) side, and theElks Club near Diamond Head is frontedby about a dozen of them. Several ofthese dredged areas can be seen in aerialphotos. In Figure 13 are Kewalo Basinand its entrance channel through the reef,and the Ala Moana Beach Park, with itsshore-parallel channel, and the entrancethrough the reef along the west side ofMagic Island (Aina Moana); see also Fig-ures 7 and 8. Figure 7 shows the entrancechannel to the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor andAla Wai Canal, the Ala Wai Yacht Har-bor, and Duke Kahanamoku Beach. Anavigation channel was dredged in the1950s through the reef for the HiltonHawaiian Village Hotel catamaran dockbasin. The connecting channel betweenFort DeRussy and Halekulani Channel,and the Halekulani Channel through thereef can be seen in aerial photos of Fig-ures 1 and 14. Part of the connectingchannel can be seen in an aerial photo-graph, Figure 15. The shore-paralleldredged channel between the KewaloBasin and the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor canbe seen in a 1930 oblique aerial photo,Figure 16. Other aerial photos are in-structive, although not reproduced here.An example is a 16 February 1949 photothat shows the channel in front of the AlaMoana Park before the beach was con-structed, and the Ala Moana Yacht Har-bor and canal before the entrance wasdredged through the reef (Bishop Mu-seum Photo Collection, No. c.p.126,191). A chart in Horton’s paper(1948) shows this channel dredged to adepth of 12 feet.

Dredged basins and channels for har-bors and navigation are easy to see in

aerial photos. But what about smallerworks such as the removal of coral tomake sea-bathing more comfortable? A1910 article in the Pacific CommercialAdvertiser, reports that Mr. Campbell,Superintendent of Public Works, said: “...as far as the removal of coral is con-cerned, he believed funds would be forth-coming to prosecute the work. ... A swimin the beach at present is a decided dis-appointment, owing to the sharp clumpsof coral which tear bathers’ feet....Hebelieved that the matter was of such pub-lic interest that the public would backupany effort to free the bathing places fromcoral.” Moberly et al. (1963) wrote: “thecenter area of reef off the [sic, beach]hotels and Kuhio Beach had been largelycleared of coral heads for the conve-nience of swimmers.”

Dredged features such as these affectcoastal forcings and processes: waves,

currents, and sand transport and distri-bution. Little quantitative information isavailable about the details of their actionsand effects.

In the following section dredging on thereef done for Fort DeRussy is described,including a channel through the reef. Fig-ure 17 is a copy of part of the chart NorthPacific Ocean, Sandwich Islands,Southside of Oahu, U.S. Navy Hydro-graphic Office, No. 867, (1880; hydro-graphic surveys in 1840, 1873 & 1875).Note that Kapua Entrance is shown, butno channel is shown in the vicinity of whereFort DeRussy was subsequently built.

FORT DERUSSY DREDGINGAND CONSTRUCTION

The main construction of FortDeRussy in the Kalia area of Waikiki wasbetween 1909 and 1911, and the place-ment of the first of two 14-inch coast ar-


Figure 7. Magic Island (Aina Moana), Ala Wai Canal entrance channel, Ala Wai Yacht Harbor, Duke Kahanamoku Beachand Lagoon, Fort DeRussy Beach. Aerial photo, 30 January 1999. (By R.L. Wiegel, #9523.)

Figure 8. Kewalo Basin, Ala Moana Beach Park, Magic Island (Aina Moana); aerial photo, 19 January 1988. Notedredged channel in front of the man-made beach. (By R.L. Wiegel, #6354.)

Dorrance (1999) says:

“Delivery of the 69-ton guns ... wasanother matter. ... [sic, the ship] Lurlinewas directed to Pearl Harbor, where aheavy duty floating crane was located.... On August 2, 1913...the navy crane off-loaded the gun onto a barge... Three dayslater the gun-bearing barge was towed toWaikiki Beach where it was pushedthrough the reef and aground in front ofBattery Randolph’s parapet. ...The chan-nel [sic, that was previously] dredged forbottom sand and fill was deepened andwidened for this operation.”

tillery guns was in 1913. This is describedby Dorrance in The Coast Defense StudyGroup Journal (1998; 1999) and inHibbard and Franzen (1986). Dorrance(1998) says:

“On November 12, 1908, Headquartersand Company A, First Battalion of Engi-neers, arrived under the command of Maj.E. Eveleth Winslow.... Winslow soon hada hydraulic dredge on site that blastedthrough the offshore reef, dredged a chan-nel to the shoreline, and deposited thedredged bottom sand and coral within thereservation. By the end of 1910 the dredge’s

work was done and construction of fortifi-cations could begin.”

A suction dredge was used to obtainmaterial for fill from the reef in front ofthe reservation. It was pumped througha pipe to the site (Thompson 1985).

Thompson also states (1985):

“In preparation for the arrival of the69-ton guns, a deep channel was dredgedthrough the reef in front of Fort DeRussyso the cannon could be barged from Ho-nolulu to as close to the battery as pos-sible.”


Figure 9. Locations of surf sites at Waikiki. (From Edward K. Noda & AssociatesInc., July 1991.)

The Pacific Commercial Advertiser (6August 1913) reported (underlining foremphasis):

“At an early hour yesterday morning,the barge bearing the gun was taken intow by Young Brothers’ launch Hukiwhich drew the unwieldy craft up thecoast to the Hau Tree channel throughwhich it picked its way to that runningparallel to Fort DeRussy...”

The dredged area in front of FortDeRussy, and the dredged connection tothe Hau Tree channel (now known as theHalekulani sand channel) are depicted ina sketch map by Moberly Jr. (1968). Aportion of the same area can be seen in a1999 aerial photo, Figure 14, and in a1919 aerial photo, Figure 15. A commentin Hawaii’s Shoreline (State of Hawaii,Dept. Planning and Economic Develop-ment 1964) is: “An old seldom used boatchannel offshore from the HalekulaniHotel is filled with sand twenty feet deepand extending beyond the reef.” [As anaside, refer to Figure 17; this bathymet-ric chart of 1880 does not show an en-trance through the reef at this location.]

Figure 16 is an oblique aerial photo(28 July 1938) which shows severaldredged channels. Fort DeRussy is at thelower left, Ala Wai Yacht Harbor in thecenter, and Ala Moana Beach Park andKewalo Basin at the upper left. A chan-nel between Fort DeRussy and the AlaWai Yacht Harbor can be seen. The chan-nel was not deep all the way, being lessthan six feet at the west end of FortDeRussy [See bathymetry on map dated15 May 1950 of Waikiki Beach, Oahu,Hawaii; date of survey August-Novem-ber 1948; Plate 1 of the USACE Hono-lulu District report (1950) and U.S. Con-gress (1953).] This channel was probablydredged subsequent to the original FortDeRussy work.

In her book Wilders of Waikiki, KinauWilder (1978) says:

“There was a raft, which the Waikikiresidents had paid for, just offshore nearour house. ...And then the army broughtin an eighteen (sic 14) inch gun to Fortde Russey (sic, DeRussy), right next tothe old Lewers place which is now thefamous Halekulani Hotel. ...Theybrought it by barge ... In order to reachthe emplacement, it was necessary tobreak through the reef just beyond thespot where our raft floated. This com-

pletely changed the pattern of the cur-rents. The beach at Waikiki was neverthe same. Instead of the reef holding thesands of the beach and preventing themfrom being carried out by the changingtides, the sand was swept through the holein the reef, never to return. What hadbeen a glorious beach -- which no otherbeach on earth could touch -- was noth-ing. Property owners lost anywhere fromten to thirty feet of their ocean frontage.Everyone was forced to put up seawallsto keep from losing their houses as well.Instead of running from the grass righton out to the ocean, we had to go downslippery steps to a miserable little stripof sand which, during certain months,was non-existent. At times I could jumpfrom our seawall right into the water.”[Note: The Sheraton Waikiki Hotel wasbuilt in 1971 on the site of the Wilderproperty.]

Owing to erosion at Fort DeRussy, in1914 a plan was developed, and a deci-sion made, to construct a seawall(USACE, Chief of Engineers, 3 letters,11 March 1914, 2 May 1914, 5 June1914; 1st Ind., (3) by U.S. Engineer Of-fice, Honolulu 15 April 1914, 19 May1914, 23 June 1914). In 1916 the Corpsof Engineers constructed a long seawallon the coral reef where there was no sand(Engineering Association of Hawaii1927). The seawall can be seen in thephotograph circa 1916, Figure 18. Notethe sea water inland of the wall. Shortlythereafter this area was filled with about26,000 cubic yards coral rock and rubbledredged from the reef (USACE, Hono-lulu, Hawaii, District Engineer Officer 19September 1916). An additional 134,000cubic yards were dredged for the fill ofduck ponds in the reservation. Note adiving tower, and a swimming pier in the


Figure 10. 1907 Map of Waikiki (Chas. V.E. Dove).

may also be caused by great naturalevents such as major tsunamis, hurri-canes (tropical cyclones), and floods. Inthis section tsunami are discussed (Iida,Cox and Pararas-Carayannis 1967;Pararas-Carayannis and Calebaugh1977).

Owing to its location relative to thesources of tsunamis in the Pacific Ocean,and the wide fringing reef protecting theshore, run-up of tsunami waves has beenrelatively low at Waikiki Beach comparedwith some locations in the Hawaiian Is-lands, such as Hilo. This has been studiedby Professor Doak C. Cox, of the Univer-sity of Hawaii, and by others. Houston,Carver, and Markle (1977) made an inves-tigation of tsunamis in the Hawaiian Is-lands, and developed frequency of occur-rence curves for run-up elevations (flood-ing) along the shore, using a hybrid finiteelement numerical model and historicaldata. They estimated the elevation of maxi-mum tsunami wave crest above mean sealevel 200 feet shoreward of the coastline.Information is given by Hwang (2005) onutilizing wave, flood, and inland zones inoverall hazard mitigation mapping byFEMA, Flood Insurance and MitigationAdministration. This includes consider-ation of tsunamis. Hwang (2005) states thatfor Oahu and other islands, tsunami inun-dation boundaries have been computed formost of the shoreline. He refers to FletcherIII, Grossman et al. (2002) for Waikiki.

aerial photos of Figures 15 (1919) and19 (1932). The channel had become aswimming basin.

At a later date, a beach was con-structed seaward of the seawall. This willbe described subsequently.

There is almost no beach along theshore in front of the Halekulani-SheratonWaikiki Hotels. This is probably a long-term effect of the dredging. Note the lackof beach in the 2 November 1932 aerialphoto, Figure 19. Little sand can be seenin recent photographs such as Figure 1and Figure 14, or in many earlier pho-tos. In Figure 1, Fort DeRussy beach isnear the left, and the Halekulani-SheratonWaikiki section at the left center.

ALA WAI CANAL; DRAINING,WETLANDS RECLAMATION,AND MOSQUITO CONTROLThe location of Ala Wai Canal is

shown on the map of Figure 4. Note the“dog-leg” section to the ocean at the topcenter.

The Ala Wai Canal, draining, wetlandsreclamation, and mosquito controlproject was constructed in 1921-1924; itwas widened at a later date to obtain morefill material (Gonzalez, Jr. 1971; Hibbardand Franzen 1986; Edward K. Noda andAssociates Inc. October 1992). The ca-nal, a total length of about two miles, wasdredged and the material used to fill ricepaddies, taro patches and fishponds. It

connects with the reef’s waters a littlewesterly of Fort DeRussy. This tidal ca-nal is a partially mixed, moderately strati-fied estuary (Gonzalez Jr. 1971). Oneconsequence of the project was thatstreams no longer flowed into the oceanat several locations, with their fresh wa-ter and sediments. Instead, the streamsflow into the canal. It is a sediment trap,with the amount of siltation ranging from8,000 to 10,000 cubic yards per year (e.g.Edward K. Noda and Associates Inc.October 1992). Maintenance dredgingwas done in 1966, in 1978, and in 2002(e.g., Blakeman 2002). The canal’s wa-ters are a source of pollutants to theWaikiki shore and the reef’s waters(Grigg 1995; 1996; Mamala Bay StudyCommission April 1996; Summer 1996).This project must have had major effectson the reef and beach. It is still a sourceof pollutants during heavy rainfall events,and long-term planning is being done inregard to the “100 year flood” (Gonser2004; Honolulu Advertiser editorial2004; Cooper 2006).

TSUNAMIS — EMPHASIZINGDRAWDOWN

Anthropogenic actions at Waikiki, andeffects of stream flooding have beenmentioned. [Others, such as hurricane-generated and other severe wave events(e.g., Grigg, 1995) are described inWiegel (2002); see also, Hwang (2005).]But what about other natural events?Substantial effects to reefs and shores


Figure 11. Aerial photo, circa 1940, looking toward Diamond Head; RoyalHawaiian-Moana Hotels Beach (curved groin near bottom); Kuhio Beach; “cribwall” breakwater; seawall along section of Kalakaua Ave.; Natatorium indistance at top right. (By Anon.)

Figure 12. Seaside Hotel, seawall, beach, circa 1910; postcard (Anon., 1910).

In this paper, tsunami wave drawdownis emphasized, rather than run-up. Littleis known about this, as on the reef thereare no equivalents of the “swash marks,lines of debris, trash left hanging fromtrees and buildings,” etc. used in deter-mining the highest run-up of tsunamiwaves. How can maximum drawdowndetermined? The damage cannot be as-sessed as reliably as can damage on land.There were eyewitness accounts of the 1April 1946 tsunami (generated in theAleutian Islands) -- the waves struckHawaii during daylight hours — and the23 May 1960 tsunami (generated offChile) -- although the waves arrived inthe middle of the night. For the 1 April1946 tsunami, Shepard, MacDonald, andCox (1950) say:

“At Diamond Head the water rose ashigh as 12 feet but came in very gently.... At the eastern end of Waikiki Beach,1.5 miles northwest of Diamond Head,the water flooded over the sea wall andattained a height of about 9 feet. All alongthe south side of Oahu the reefs were laidbare between waves....”

A Honolulu newspaper quotes Timo-thy Lyons, of Diamond Head Road, an“amazed witness”:

“At about 6:50 (sic, a.m.), the oceanwas sucked almost dry clear out to thereef. I could see nothing but coral and

rock on the floor of the ocean. Then itstarted coming in....”

During the 23 May 1960 tsunami aflash photo taken by Jack Titchen (1960)shows the reef bottom bared at the cata-maran loading pier of the Hilton Hawai-


Figure 13. Ala Moana Reef, Kewalo Basin, Ala Moana Beach Park, Magic Island(Aina Moana), Ala Wai Yacht Harbor/Canal entrance; dredged channels, aerialphoto. (From Gerritsen, March 1981, p. 215.)

an observation about a tsunami in the late1860s by Harriet N. Deming in her un-published manuscript. Her home was onthe beach next to Kamehameha V’s prop-erty. The tsunami probably occurred in1868 (see catalogs of tsunamis in Hawaiiby Iida, Cox and Pararas-Carayannis1968; and by Pararas-Carayannis andCalebaugh 1977). Deming recalled the“tidal wave” with the “tide so low thatthe bed of the ocean was uncovered allthe way out to the reef, with rocks andseaweed glistening in the sunlight... “ andthen the “sea came flooding in, risinghigher and higher, not stopping at theedge of the beach, but rushing up on thelong slope until the waves were lappingat our veranda foundation ... In a fewminutes the waters again receded ... leav-ing the ocean bed bare. Three times wasthis movement repeated...”

A considerable drawdown was likelyto have occurred at Waikiki during thetsunami from Chile of 7 November 1837.This is based on the fact that water wasobserved to have receded to 2.4 metersbelow normal tide in Honolulu Harbor,leaving it partly dry (Pararas-Carayannisand Calebaugh 1977).

The author made a search of the tech-nical literature for information about tsu-namis on reefs, but found little. It is prob-able that considerable quantities of sand,silt, broken coral and shell were washedoff the reef by the hydraulic flows ofthese tsunamis, and lost from the littoralsystem.

EXTENSIVELY MODIFIEDURBAN SHORE

Waikiki is an extensively modifiedurbanized waterfront, intensively used,and vital to the economics of Hawaii.According to a study by the State of Ha-waii Department of Business, EconomicDevelopment & Tourism (2003):“Waikiki remains the flagship of thestate’s tourism industry...with 45% of allvisitor units.” Its visitor industry supports8% of the Gross State Product. “Directlyand indirectly, the small, one-square milearea of Waikiki can be associated withsupporting about 11% of all civilian jobsin the state and 12% of state and localtax revenue.”

Many works and events are listed inthe Chronology of Significant CoastalEvents at Waikiki, 1825-2007, an appen-dix at the end of this paper (update ofWiegel 2002; 2005). Small-craft harbors

ian Village [in the Honolulu Star-Bulle-tin 23 May 1960]. A 1963 Coast & Geo-detic Survey chart (USC&GS Chart4132, 10th Ed. June 3/63) shows a pier,dock, and a small basin in the reef at theend of the pier, with a note “beingdredged to 5 ft.” A chart in Chave et al.(1973) of the reef bathymetry shows adepth of about 10 feet at the catamaranbasin.

Another item in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (23 May 1960) says that atKuhio Beach:

“Between waves, foolhardy personswere able to run out on the reef and pickup fish.”

And, in the newspaper’s “Police Log”:

“1:16 (sic a.m.) — at Kuhio Beach,water is splashing over the sea wall; 1:28— water that has withdrawn at KuhioBeach is now rising; 1:37 – Ala Wai Ca-nal at Ala Moana is down 11 feet; 1:40 –sand and reef is exposed 100 feet beyondWaikiki hotels...”

George S. Kanahele (1996), in hisbook on the history of Waikiki, quotes


Figure 14. Halekulani, Sheraton Waikiki, Royal Hawaiian (and long curvedgroin), Moana Surfrider, Moana Hotels; Halekulani “sand channel” at left; aerialphoto, cloudy, 30 January 1999. (By R.L. Wiegel, #9524.)

Figure 15. Vertical aerial photo of Fort DeRussy, 21 November 1919; narrowchannel dredged in reef connecting to dredged channel in front of new beach.Note diving tower at left. (U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii, USAMH No. 2078.)

have been developed, with basins andnavigation channels dredged in the reef.Many seawalls have been constructed.Eighty-one structures along the shorewere listed in a 1950 report (USACE,Honolulu District 1950); seawalls,groins, piers, storm drains. This list wasupdated, with the status of each struc-ture given, in a University of Hawaii re-port by Crane (1972). Several of thestructures can be seen in a 1932 aerialphoto, Figure 19; the reach between theRoyal Hawaiian Hotel and the Ala WaiCanal entrance. Additional data on struc-tures are in reports by Gerritsen (1978),and by Edward K. Noda and Associates,Inc. (July 1991). Narrow beaches havebeen widened with carbonate sand,mostly brought from other parts of Oahuor Molokai (USACE, Honolulu District1963; U.S. Congress 1965; Moberly etal. 1965; 1975). Several beaches havebeen constructed of coral rubble andcrushed coral base, with the materialdredged from the reef — topped with car-bonate sand brought by truck (Campbelland Moberly 1978; Thompson 1985).Structures have been built to try to holdthe sand on the shore. Beach erosion con-trol studies, and beach restoration rec-ommendations are available in severalreports (e.g., Engineering Association ofHawaii 1927; U.S. Army, Corps of En-gineers, Honolulu District 1950 and1963; U.S. Congress 1953 and 1965;Gerritsen 1978; Edward K. Noda andAssociates Inc. 1999, as given in Bodge2000; Bodge 2000).

The guidelines were — preserve thebreakers for surfboarding, provide asand blanket to cover the inshore coral,and stabilize a dry beach for sunbath-ing. (O’Brien 1938, as given in Thomp-son 1985).

Another comment by O’Brien as aresult of his investigation of WaikikiBeach for the USACE Beach ErosionBoard in 1938, given by Thompson(1985) is:

“...Although he talked to people whohad known Waikiki for many years, (sic,O’Brien) was still uncertain whether thebeach had eroded. He was not sure if thebeach had actually been lost or if themany structures there covered the origi-nal beach... Seawalls had been builtalong most of the beach and the localopinion blamed them for the erosion.O’Brien wondered though if they weren’tthe consequence rather than the cause.”

From a study of reports, newspaperarticles, photographs, personal knowl-edge, and a review of other situations,the author concludes (Wiegel 2002) thatmost, if not all, of the seawalls at WaikikiBeach have been built as part of, or be-cause of, encroachment on the shore,mining of sand and removal of “coral,”and/or erosion/recession caused by otheranthropogenic and natural actions.

Information on the several reaches ofshore follows.

Natatorium; and Sans Souci(Kaimana), Outrigger Canoe Cluband Elks Club Beaches. These can beseen in the aerial photograph, Figure 6.

The War Memorial Natatorium wascompleted in 1927, at the site of the oldW.G. Irwin home (Hibbard and Franzen1988). An 1886 photo (Bishop Museum,

Neg. No. CP 126,423) shows this and theadjacent Mitchell house at the edge of,or on, a narrow beach. The Irwin homelocation is shown on the 1907 Dove Map,Figure 10. The Natatorium is about 375feet long, and extends into the oceanabout 200 feet (U.S. Congress 1953;Gerritsen 1978). It is a salt water swim-ming pool, and the depth of water varieswith the tide. It is the subject of politicalcontroversy (demolition or major resto-ration), and its status is still being de-bated.

The reach between the War MemorialNatatorium and the Elks Club is about1,000 feet (U.S. Congress 1965). Thebeaches are small, but larger than in thepast. The present Outrigger Canoe Clubbuilding was built here in 1963. Clark(1977) says sand excavated as part of theconstruction of the new buildings was


Figure 16. Oblique aerial photo of Fort DeRussy, Ala Wai Yacht Harbor, Ala Moana Beach Park, 28 July 1938, Dredgedchannels parallel to shore are evident. (U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii, USAMH No. 2789.)

The Outrigger Canoe Club dredged anaccess channel 4½ feet deep (U.S. Con-gress 1965). AECOS Inc. (1979) says itprovides access from the canoe club’sanchorage to the Kapua Entrance.

Kapua Entrance is a natural channelthrough the reef that extends nearly toshore here. It is shown on the 1880 chartof the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office,Figure 17. [Historic note. The first sub-marine communication cable betweenSan Francisco and Honolulu was broughtashore through the Kapua Entrance(Channel) on 28 December 1902; Clark(1977) says remnants of the old subma-rine cable can still be found in this chan-nel.] On 23 June 2002, Orville T.Magoon observed the bottom in thischannel, using a face mask. He took un-derwater photos, and one of them showedtwo cables (2" to 3" in diameter) on the“dead” coral rubble or hard bottom, butthe cables were buried at some places.Copies of several of his photos are in

placed on the beach. Two 1962 photo-graphs by Alex William Photography showcoarse sand and carbonate pebbles andcobbles. [These photos are in Wiegel(2002); from the Outrigger Canoe ClubHistorical Committee archives.] About1,660 cubic yards of coral fill and 6,000cubic yards of sand, 2½ feet thick, wereplaced to a maximum elevation of 7 feetnear the seawall (U.S. Congress 1965). TheOutrigger Canoe Club constructed arubblemound groin in front of the ColonySurf apartment building. Crane (1972) re-fers to it as the Colony Surf groin, built in1963; length 190 feet, width 10 feet, el-evation between 8.1 and 3.7 feet.

[As an aside, when the author visitedSans Souci Beach on 6 February 2002,sand was observed being moved by useof a front-end loader from where it hadaccumulated at the east side of the Nata-torium, to the southeast end of the beachfrom where it eroded; a photo of thiswork is in Wiegel (2002).]

The original Sans Souci Hotel waslocated here, probably at the site of thepresent Kaimana Beach Hotel. A 1902photo (Bishop Museum Neg. 2322),taken from the original pier at Sans Soucishows a one-story small structure on con-crete piles, extending over the water, andno beach. Two photos circa 1910 of theMcInerny property (in Hibbard andFranzen) show a seawall along part ofthe property and thick vegetation on theDiamond Head side extending to theocean’s edge.

The Outrigger Canoe Club and theElks Club are on the site of the formerJames B. Castle home, which was builtin 1899 at Kalehuawehe Point on the siteof the earlier Park Beach Hotel (Grant1996). A photo of the Castle mansion (byHedemann, in Bishop Museum, Neg. No.78098) shows the seaward part built overwater on piles, with seawalls along thefront on both sides; and no visible sandbeach.


Figure 17. Southside ofOahu, Sandwich Islands,North Pacific Ocean,1880. (U.S. NavyHydrographic Office, No.867; hydrography fromsurvey in 1840, 1873 and1875; courtesy SurveyDivision, State ofHawaii.)

Wiegel (2002); additional photos are inMagoon (Sept. 2002). He commentedthat the bottom appeared to be hard, withsome rounded cobbles, and some finesand. He said that very little coral wasgrowing in the channel, but that there wasan increasing growth on the reef to theeast.

Kuhio Beach and Kapiolani ParkBeach/Queen’s Surf Beachs. In the cen-ter of Waikiki are Kuhio Beach Park; andQueen’s Surf Beach/Kapiolani ParkBeach east of them. Photos of thesebeaches are in Figures 1, 5, and 6. Asmentioned previously, a stream onceflowed to the shore here; and much sandwas removed from the Kuhio Beach areacirca 1910. A 130-foot-long timber pieron piles was built here prior to 1890, andremoved in 1934; it was known as QueenLili’uokalani pier and also as Kuhio pier(Crane 1972).

These are Reaches E, F, and G (1,450,1,050 and 1,240 feet in length) in theWaikiki Beach area measurements ofEdward K. Noda and Associates Inc.

(July 1991). Beach areas obtained fromvertical aerial photographs between 1952and 1990 are presented in Table 1, andbeach widths in 1952 and 1990 are inTable 2. The beach sand was brought herefrom other areas of Oahu. The author isnot sure of the total amount of sand thathas been placed, as there are discrepan-cies in the published data.

Loss of sand during storms, and wavesbreaking over the seawall in 1937, led toaction at Kuhio Beach in 1938 (Horton1948; USACE, Honolulu District 1950;U.S. Congress 1953). 7,000 cubic yardsof sand were placed on the beach in 1939to widen it to 150 feet. A shore-parallelbreakwater 650 feet long was built about200 feet offshore, with the crest at aboutMLLW. Shore return structures werebuilt at each end of the breakwater to helpretain the sand. This is known as the “cribwall.” Coral patches between the break-water and the shore were cleared by adragline excavator. This project and theroad-retaining seawall along KalakauaAvenue can be seen in the center of Fig-

ure 11, an aerial photo circa 1940. Notethe absence of a dry sand beach in frontof part of the seawall. Before-and-afterphotos of the beach in 1939 are in Fig-ures 20a and 20b. These Beach ErosionBoard photos are in Horton (1948), to-gether with a photo taken in December1947.

When Horton made his inspection ofKuhio Beach in December 1947, henoted there had “been a considerable lossof sand fill from the beach in the 8 yearssince its artificial placement. The resultsare considered satisfactory, however...”

In March 1951 an additional 107,000cubic yards of sand was brought by truckand placed along this section and a littleeasterly of it (Wachter 1958). The 355-foot-long Kapahulu storm drain wasbuilt, 19 feet wide, top elevation 8.5 feet(Crane 1972), which functions as a groin.In 1953 the breakwater was extendedabout 750 feet easterly to the storm drain;it is shore-parallel, seaward of theKalakaua Avenue seawall (U.S. Congress1953; Wachter 1958). Sand was brought


Figure 18. Looking along “new” seawall at Fort DeRussy, toward Diamond Head, circa 1916. Note seawater inland ofseawall. (U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii, USAMH No. 4582.)

Figure 19.Oblique aerialphoto, looking

from westboundary of

Royal HawaiianHotel to Fort

DeRussy,Cassidy’s Point,

and Ala WaiCanal entrance

(at upper left), 2November 1932.

(U.S. ArmyMuseum of

Hawaii, USAMHNo. 2788.)

In 1966, a model study was made in awave tank at the University of Hawaii toinvestigate several proposed changes forKuhio Beach (Palmer and Kartha 1966).

In 1972-1973 and in 1975 remedialwork was done at Kuhio Beach. Planview drawings are in Figures 21a and 21b(from Gerritsen 1978). This includedmodification of the crib wall, and add-ing sand. Gerritsen (p. 29) says that12,000 cubic yards of sand were placedin 1972-1973; and that 9,500 cubic yardsof sand were added in 1975.

A study of the Kapahulu storm drainwater was made by Fujioka and Morens(1994). They concluded that while therewas no immediate health risk during

to widen the beach along the seawall(quantity unavailable). A swimming areawas dredged between the beach and thebreakwater. [Note. The breakwater,storm drain, and groins enclosed thebeach; but sand is still transported out.According to Edward K. Noda and As-sociates Inc. (July 1991): “The increasedwater level within the basin due to waveovertopping causes strong outflowsthrough the openings, scouring deepholes and loss of sand from this enclosedbeach system.”]

The project included placing sandalong Queen’s Surf Beach (quantity un-available).

An aerial photo in Grant (1996; Baker-

VanDyke Collection) shows the then newlyconstructed Kapahula storm drain/groin,and the recent sand fill of Kuhio/Queen’sSurf Beaches. The southerly (“DiamondHead side”) Kuhio Beach breakwater wasnot completed. [This photo was probablytaken between July 1951 and July 1953.]Sand was brought from the Bellows Air-field dunes, eastern shore of Oahu, andplaced on the beach (U.S. Congress 1963).Note that for Reach F, Kapahulu Drain-Queen’s Surf Groin, Edward K. Noda andAssociates Inc. (July 1991; reproducedhere in Table 2) list the beach area as 75,400square feet in the 1952 aerial photo; and120,800 square feet in the 1990 aerialphoto.


Figure 20a. Kuhio Beach, 20 May 1939, prior to construction of crib wall breakwater and placement of sand fill. (CourtesyUSACE Beach Erosion Board.)

Figure 20b. Kuhio Beach, 1939, after construction of crib wall breakwater and placement of sand fill. (Courtesy USACEBeach Erosion Board.)

storm water discharge at the drain, “pru-dence states that it is not a good decisionto allow a storm drain to discharge soclose to a swimming area.” A State ofHawaii report (Dept. Land and NaturalResources 2005) says Fujioka andMorens “recommend that the waterwithin Kuhio Beach should have bettercirculation and that the storm drain wa-ter discharge be relocated by extensionor by changing the walls and jetties.”

One source of sand for beach fill isoffshore. A demonstration project forKuhio Beach was made in February 2000(Edward K. Noda and Associates Inc.2000; Anon. June 2001). About 1,400cubic yards of sand were dredged fromthin deposits (two to four feet thick) inshallow water on the reef, about 1,100seaward of the breakwater. It waspumped though an eight-inch pipelinealong the bottom to Kuhio Beach, anddeposited on the beach.

A summary of the actions taken atKuhio Beach through 2004 was preparedby the Hawaii Department of Land andNatural Resources (DLNR) (January2005). [Proposed T-head stabilizingheadlands, for future replacement of theexisting shore-parallel breakwater shownin this report (see also Bodge 2000), havenot been implemented.] In the DLNRreport they say that: “...today major seg-ments of the beach have little to no sandat high tide and few will disagree thatoverall, the beach here is in a degradedstate.” A study was made of currents atthe site to help assess sediment transportpathways at and near Kuhio Beach, us-ing fluorescent dye in the nearshore wa-ters of Kuhio Beach (Eversole 2004).

A larger small scale demonstrationproject was planned (Hawaii DLNR2005), to dredge, pump through a pipe,place on Kuhio Beach, and distribute/grade sand from a deposit on the reef flat,

about 2,000 feet offshore. It was sched-uled for January-February 2005, but wasdelayed until October 2005, and delayedagain until December 2006 (e.g., Hono-lulu Advertiser staff 2006). Dredging andpumping sand of this project, the KuhioBeach Nourishment Project, was startedon 4 December 2006, and the projectcompleted on 5 January 2007. An esti-mated total of about 9,000 cubic yardsof sand was pumped. The contractor wasthe American Marine Corporation. De-tails of the project are available from theWeb site of the Office of Conservationand Coastal Lands, State of Hawaii, Dept.Land and Natural Resources (December2006-January 2007), including colorphotos before, during and after, at http://www.hawaii.gov/dlnr/occl/waikiki.php.

This state project was estimated tocost $475,000 (Honolulu Advertiser staff2006). The author visited the completedproject on 24 January 2007 with Dolan


Figure 21 a,b. KuhioBeach improvement

plans: (a) 1973 and (b)1975. (From Gerritsen,

1978, p. 29.)

reach between the two long storm drains/groins.] The lack of a sand beach is prob-ably because of the swimming channel.However, details of the interactions areunknown.

The Waikiki Aquarium is a little north-west of the Natatorium, near the shore;Figure 22. A substantial quantity of seawater is used in the aquarium (AECOSInc. 1979). It is obtained from a welldrilled in the 1950s, just landward of theseawall, and from directly offshore (wa-ter about 10 feet deep) through an intakepipe. Sea water is discharged by meansof a pipeline running along the sametrench as the intake pipe. Details are inWiegel (2002), from the Aquarium staffvia Magoon (31 May 2002).

Royal Hawaiian-Moana HotelsBeach can be seen in the photos of Fig-ures 1, 5, and 11. This 1,660-foot-longbeach is between the long curved groinat the west side of the Royal HawaiianHotel, and the sandbag rubble-moundgroin at the westerly end of Kuhio Beach.The beach sand along this slightly con-cave shore appears to be held by the longcurved groin, Figures 1, 11, and 14.

Eversole (University of Hawaii SeaGrant College Program and HawaiiDLNR). It appeared to be successful, andmany people were on the wider beach.An article about the project by Eversoleand Lemmo (2007) is in “Coastal Voice,”the newsletter of the ASBPA.

The 1,050-foot-long section betweenthe Kapahulu storm drain/groin and theQueen’s Surf storm drain/groin is rela-tively wide. Long, wide storm drains/groins are at each end. Widths and areasare given in Tables 1 and 2, Reach G. Thesand was brought to the site from otherareas of Oahu.

In 1956-1957, beach work was ex-panded easterly through Kapiolani ParkBeach, the reach between the Queen’sSurf storm drain/groin and the Natato-rium, about 1,200 feet. The 370-feet-longQueen’s Surf storm drain/groin was builtin 1956, 15 feet wide, top elevation 4.4to 6.6 feet (Crane 1972). 32,000 to35,000 cubic yards of sand were broughtto the site and placed on top of a coralbase (Wachter 1958). A shore-paralleloffshore swimming area was dredged,and the bottom covered with sand. This

beach can be seen in an aerial photo inWachter (1958), with the caption“Waikiki’s Newest Beach.” Edward K.Noda and Associates Inc. (July 1991) saythat, “Prior to artificial nourishment,there was no dry beach along this reachnorth of the Natatorium. The 1958 photoshows the beach initially constructed witha fairly uniform width over its entirelength, including a groin at the north endto stabilize the reach.”

The bathymetry of the swimmingchannel is shown in Figure 22; this isfrom a report on the measurement of cur-rents by Professor Gerritsen (1978).[Note. The ebb and flood current patternson both sides of the Natatorium areshown on this figure.] At present there isalmost no dry sand beach; when the au-thor visited the site on 24 January 2007,it looked like the photo of 6 February2002, in Wiegel (2002). [Note. The au-thor has not been able to find anythingabout the large shore-parallel pipelinethat can be seen in this photo. Also,Queen’s Surf Beach is shown on Figure22, as used by the USACE, but as men-tioned herein the author previously(Wiegel 2002) used this name for the


Figure 22. Ebb and flood current patterns around the Natatorium, andbathymetry; Queen’s Surf Beach/Kapiolani Park Beach, and Sans Souci(Kaimana) Beach. (From Gerritsen, 1978, p. 45.)

Edward K. Noda and Associates Inc.(1991) give beach toe line data they mea-sured from 15 vertical aerial photo-graphs, 1952-1990, in figures and tables.Their summaries of data on beach areasand average beach widths are given herein Tables 1 and 2. For the Royal Hawai-ian-Moana Hotels Beach, they say:

“...a crescent-shaped beach...Thisreach has shown a long-term trend of in-creasing average beach width from aminimum of about 70 feet in 1952 to amaximum of about 160 feet in 1982.Present (sic 1991) width is about 125feet. This beach area has probably gainedadditional beach sand from transport outof the Kuhio Beach area.”

The center area of reef off these ho-tels and Kuhio Beach “...has been largelycleared of coral heads for the conve-nience of swimmers. Sand lies in largepatches that seem to shift their positionvery little, according to older aerial pho-tographs.” (Moberly Jr., Cox et al. 1963)

The Moana Hotel opened in March1901 (Cohen 2000); it is at the site ofthe W.C. Peabody home which was justeast of the Long Branch Bathhouse. His-toric photographs, circa 1902-1925,show the hotel dining room extendedover the beach almost to the sea’s edge,supported by piles; see Figure 3b. Theconcrete wings were built in 1917-1918.The 21-story Surfrider on the west sideof the Moana opened in 1969. A 240-foot-long timber pier on piles (PeacockPier; subsequently renamed Moana Pier)was built in about 1890 (perhaps rebuiltin 1901?), Figure 2. It was taken downin 1931 (Crane 1972). The originalOutrigger Canoe Club building/boathouse and additions were west of theMoana Hotel. Apuakehau Stream flowedinto ocean between these buildings; thestream mouth was closed at times, as inthe photo of Figure 3b.

The Royal Hawaiian Hotel (the “PinkPalace”) was built in 1925-1926 (Grant1996; Peralta 2002). It is at the site ofthe former Seaside Hotel; which is shownin the old postcard of Figure 12. A longgroin was built when the hotel was con-structed. It was lengthened to 368 feet in1930, and raised in elevation at an un-known date (Crane 1972); this groin canbe seen in Figure 11.

Halekulani-Sheraton Waikiki Ho-tels Section. This 1,480-foot-long reach

of shore was formerly known as Gray’sBeach (Clark 1977). It is between twolong groins; the curved groin at theboundary of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel,and the Fort DeRussy storm drain/groin(box culvert) at the “Ewa” side. There isalmost no dry sand beach along thisslightly convex shore, Figures 1 and 14;nor at the bottom right of the 1932 aerialphoto, Figure 19. According to MoberlyJr., Cox et al. (1963): “West of the groinat the west end of the Royal HawaiianHotel the beach is very narrow, if it ispresent at all. The reef offshore has fewsandy areas, but a moderately large chan-nel filled with sand to a thickness greaterthan 20 feet does cross the reef offshorefrom the Halekulani Hotel.” The authorhas mentioned previously herein a prob-

able reason for the lack of a sand beachhere.

Additional data about the sand in theHalekulani sand channel are in Cascianoand Palmer (1970); Kerr (1970) as re-ported in Gerritsen (1973; 1978); Ed-ward K. Noda and Associates Inc. (June1991); Hampton et al. (2002).

Groins were built in this reach, whichcan be seen in the 1932 aerial photo, Fig-ure 19. When Crane inspected them in1972, all but one had completely dete-riorated or were buried, or nothing re-mained. The short “YWCA groin” wasin reasonable condition, owing to repairs;it is a short distance east of the FortDeRussy storm drain/groin. A long boxculvert/groin at the easterly end of Fort


Figure 23. Aerial photo looking toward Diamond Head, 1946; Cassidy’s Point, lower left and Fort DeRussy, 1946. Notedredged channel in front of Fort DeRussy. (From Isaacs, 1946.)

In 1976, a two-foot layer of qualitysand was placed on top of the beach (Th-ompson 1985). Beach maintenance wasdone in 1981, in 1987, and again in 1994(following Hurricane Iniki) (USACE,Honolulu District 28 February 1975; 5May 1975; 23 May 1975; 2 June 1975;1987; 1993).

A concrete box culvert/groin is be-tween Fort DeRussy and the formerYWCA (site of the present Waikiki ShoreApartments); at the easterly (“DiamondHead”) boundary of the military reser-vation. The culvert runs along a 10-foot-wide easement. According to Crane(1972) the concrete storm drain, whichwas originally built in 1917, was length-ened from 70 feet to 300 feet in 1969,and a rubble-mound/stone-face groin 160feet long was build against the westerlyside of it in 1969. The date 1969 is inerror, as owing to a delay, the rubble-mound groin was not completed untilJuly 1971; the crest elevation is +7 feetabove MLLW (USACE, Honolulu Dis-trict 25 Jan. 1972).

Duke Kahanamoku Beach and La-goon; Hilton (originally Kaiser) Ha-waiian Village. This 1,000-foot-longconcave shaped beach and lagoon are be-

DeRussy can be seen on the right side ofthe aerial photo, Figure 7.

In 1929 an experiment was made topump sand from the reef flat to the beachhere, using a centrifugal pump and a pipe-line about 600 feet long (Crane 1972).The experiment worked, but was discon-tinued as the equipment was not of suffi-cient size to be efficient.

Fort DeRussy Beach. An aerial photolooking toward Diamond Head from off-shore Cassidy’s Point shows FortDeRussy in 1946, Figure 23. Comparethis with the 1999 aerial photo, Figure 7.

The early work at Fort DeRussy hasbeen described in a previous section. In1957 “one severe storm caused the beachto virtually disappear” (USACE, Hono-lulu District 5 May 1975). A postcard ofan aerial photo of Fort DeRussy, circa1967 (Dexter Press), shows four groinswith evidence of alongshore transport ofsand towards “Diamond Head.” Accord-ing to Crane (1972) the groins were re-moved in 1970. In 1969 a beach con-struction project was authorized, whichwas done in 1970. This beach was builtin front of the seawall. An aerial photoof the work underway is in Figure 24.The box culvert and groin, which was

built in 1917 at the easterly boundary,can be seen at the top center. The beach,about 1,800 feet long, was made withabout 82,000 cubic yards of dredgedcoral material and concrete debris. Un-washed crushed coral sand was used tocover the fill (Thompson 1985). Duringconstruction Waikiki was subject to highwinds and waves by a storm on 13-14January 1970; but there was no damageto the beach or to construction equipment(Yoshimoto 1970).

According to AECOS Inc. (1979), in1971 a thick layer of silt formed over theshallow reef flat off Fort DeRussy after thecrushed coral had been placed on the beach.

In Thompson’s book (1985) on thehistory of the Corps of Engineers in thePacific, he says the “pulverized coral thathad been laid down in the 1960s hadcompacted into a hard surface, more likean airfield than a beach.”

Tune (1975) said:

“In the early 1970s the Corps’ spentmore than $1,000 a month to scruff up (sic,scarify) the coral three times a week...themachine looks like a tractor with a giantcomb dragging at the rear.” Later, the costincreased to $1,500 a month.


Figure 24. Fort DeRussy Beach; restoring sand beach, 1970 aerial photo; boxculvert/groin near top (From Thompson, 1985, p. 259.)

tween Fort DeRussy and the Ala WaiYacht Harbor and Canal, Figures 1 and7. They were constructed in 1956, with a150-foot wide sandy beach and a a 7-footdeep, 150-foot wide swimming basin(U.S. Congress 1965; USACE, PacificOcean Division 1971; Edward K. Nodaand Associates, Inc. July 1991). Thebeach and lagoon were manmade, adredging and sand filling joint ventureof the Board of Harbor Commissionersand Henry J. Kaiser (Clark 1977).

The lagoon was made by placing sandaround the then open water areas, com-pletely enclosing it (Edward K. Noda andAssociates Inc. July 1991). Water waspumped from the lagoon into the Ala WaiYacht Harbor; and water flowed from theocean into the lagoon through two 36-inch diameter pipes. This provided cir-culation of the lagoon’s water. At present(2006/2007) the Hilton Hawaiian VillageLagoon Restoration project is under way.This is a project of the Hilton HotelsCorp., by an agreement with the city andcounty of Honolulu (Eversole April2007; Dingeman 2007). It includes res-toration of water quality in the lagoon.Several wells have been installed to ob-tain clean sea water (and no marine or-ganisms) from the ground water, ratherthan directly from the ocean as it wasoriginally; about 15,000 gallons of saltwater per minute, a water turnover ofabout five times per day. Storm waterflows into the lagoon have been elimi-nated. A geotextile barrier was placed onthe existing mud bottom of the lagoon,and a layer of clean sand was placed ontop of the barrier and beach; 33,000 tonsof sand.

The catamaran dock basin and narrownavigation channel to the ocean weredredged in the reef (Kaiser-Burns Devel-opment Corp. 1950s; USACE, HonoluluDistrict 5 May 1975). A map by Kaiser-Burns Development Corp., dated 31 May1960, in the USACE, Honolulu Districtfiles shows soundings taken in the basinin 1956, just after completion of thedredging. The navigation channel isshown on a map dated 20 July 1959 (Kai-ser-Burns Development Corp. undated,but probably 1959).

The beach is protected by a narrowcurved portion of reef between the twobasins that was not dredged; it was leftto function as a submerged breakwater.In 1963 a groin/breakwater was built at

the west end of the beach and a long cul-vert/groin at the east end (USACE, Ho-nolulu District 5 May 1975).

Sand was added to the beach berm in1958. In 1966, a third sand fill of 2,500cubic yards was placed on the berm(Yoshimoto 1970).

This beach was constructed at the siteof the former Niumalu Hotel, which wasestablished in 1926 at the location of thePierpont Hotel, Hummel’s Court,Cassidy’s Court, and Cressaty’s Court(e.g., Grant 1996). A point and a pier areshown on the 5 May 1927 USC&GSChart 4132; and the point can be seen atthe upper left of the 1932 aerial photo,Figure 19, adjacent to Fort DeRussy, andat the lower left of the 1946 aerial photo,Figure 23. In the Engineering Commit-tee on Waikiki Beach Improvement re-port (Engineering Association of Hawaii1927), it is said:

“The effects of a groyne are evidentat Cassidy’s Point, where by gradual ex-tensions of a barrier built of rock, palm

leaves, trash and sand bags, the high wa-ter line was advanced 300 feet beyondthe original high water line. This re-claimed land is now enclosed by a seawall and occupied....The barrier was soconstructed that the sand accumulated onthe Waikiki side only.”

[See also U.S. Congress (1953).] A1920 photo of this point, seawall, walk-way, and short observation pier are inGrant (1996).

Ala Wai Yacht Harbor was con-structed in increments, beginning in 1935with a basin dredged in the reef at themouth of the Ala Wai Canal (USACE,Pacific Ocean Division 1971). Prior tothis, small craft were moored in the AlaWai Canal, with access being a shore-parallel navigation channel which hadbeen dredged in the reef between it andKewalo Basin in 1928. Aerial photos areshown in Figures 1, 7, and 16. A chart inHorton (1948) shows this channel with anotation “dredged to 12 feet.” In 1952,an entrance channel was dredged directlyacross the reef to the ocean (Wachter


Table 1. Waikiki Beach areas, 1952-1990 (square feet).(From Edward K. Noda and Associates Inc., July 1991, p. 6).

Month/year Reach A Reach B Reach C Reach D Reach E Reach F Reach G Reach H Total1100 LF 1700 LF 1450 LF 1670 LF 1450 LF 1050 LF 1240 LF 630 LF 10,290LF

9/52 0 63,100 27,100 120,200 126,600 75,400 0 12,900 425,3001/58 171,400 56,600 69,400 131,500 141,700 93,800 105,400 ? 769,800+1/66 202,400 68,700 50,300 184,500 117,200 64,700 65,500 24,800 778,000?/69 200,900 154,400 70,200 158,700 89,400 77,100 67,100 ? 817,800+11/70 200,400 259,700 62,600 147,600 100,400 82,400 68,800 39,800 961,7001/72 210,500 271,100 79,300 160,800 105,200 82,300 69,500 28,400 1,007,0003/75 167,700 225,200 60,000 158,500 130,300 75,300 45,200 25,300 887,60012/76 215,400 288,500 71,400 206,600 151,600 98,900 58,400 40,300 1,131,10010/78 201,300 254,500 59,100 193,200 130,800 85,100 38,300 43,800 1,006,10012/82 227,800 267,400 70,700 269,200 161,400 138,400 47,500 59,000 1,241,2009/83 223,500 216,200 ? 217,600 116,400 132,200 39,700 49,600 995,300+8/87 200,200 230,100 ? 217,600 ? ? ? ?2/88 207,100 232,600 63,700 221,200 136,500 110,100 39,000 55,700 1,066,0005/89 ? 264,400 83,700 224,500 129,800 119,000 34,000 ?7/90 193,200 192,200 46,200 209,800 110,700 120,800 31,100 53,600 957,500

NET AREA 193,200 129,100 19,200 89,500 15,900 45,400 31,100 40,600 532,2001952-1990 GAIN GAIN GAIN GAIN LOSS GAIN GAIN GAIN GAIN

REACH A: Ala Wai Harbor-Hilton PierREACH B: Hilton Pier-DeRussy GroinREACH C: DeRussy Groin-Royal Hawaiian GroinREACH D: Royal Hawaiian Groin-Kuhio Beach

An aerial photograph of the reach, circa1981, is shown in Figure 13 (fromGerritsen 1981).

Magic Island (Aina Moana) is a pen-insula, not an island; see the aerial pho-tos of Figures 7 and 13. It is between theAla Wai Canal and Yacht Harbor, and theAla Moana Beach Park. Substantialchanges were made from the more ex-tensive original plan for the Ala MoanaReef (Belt, Collins & Associates Ltd.1961). It was constructed of fill placedon 30 acres of the reef flat, and completedin 1964 (Belt 1963; Nance and Hirota1974). Most of the fill came from thecoral dredged from a future boat slip out-board of the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor. Twosmall beaches were made with sandbrought from another part of Oahu andfrom Molokai. Both beaches can be seenin Figures 7 and 13, and a narrow chan-nel parallel to the new western shorelinewhich was dredged across the reef. De-tached breakwaters were constructed toprotect the “outer beach.”

[As an aside, the light-draft harbor

REACH E: Kuhio Beach (within crib walls)REACH F: Kapahulu Drain-Queens Surf GroinREACH G: Queens Surf Groin-NatatoriumHEACH H: Natatorium-Colony Surf Groin

1958). A hydraulic model study wasmade of the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor, MagicIsland (Aina Moana) complex, AlaMoana Beach Park and Kewalo Basin atthe USACE Waterways Experiment Sta-tion (Brasfeild and Chatham 1967). Im-provements were made subsequently bythe state of Hawaii (USACE, PacificOcean Division 1971; 1975). Recentaerial photos (1998, 1999) are in Figures1 and 7.

Ala Moana Beach Park and MagicIsland (Aina Moana). Historic mapsand charts, and a topographic map basedon 1909-1913 surveys show this regionto be coastal wetlands at that time. Priorto 1920 it was known as Kalia (Campbelland Moberly 1978). Ala Moana Park wasdeveloped on a swamp and the Honolulugarbage dump (Wachter 1958, Clark1977). William M. Wachter, Superinten-dent of Public Works, T.H., made the fol-lowing statement in his article in Shore& Beach (1958):

“The heart of Waikiki is land createdby the filling of swamps, marshes, and

duck ponds. Ala Moana Park, Waikiki’smost popular weekend play spot, restson fill covering an old garbage dump.”

A 2-foot-deep coral fill was placedalong the Ala Moana Park seawall in1934, with a topping of sand. It was notwide owing to the shore-parallel naviga-tion channel that had been dredged in thereef in 1928; see top left of the 1938aerial photo of Figure 16.

In 1954-1955, reef rubble wasdredged and used to fill the old channel,to form a platform on which a 4,000-foot-long beach was constructed; 490,000cubic yards. 54,455 cubic yards of sandwere placed on top, brought fromKeawaula Beach (also known asYokohama Beach), at the northwest cor-ner of Oahu. A new channel for swim-ming was dredged in the reef seaward ofit. Between 1955 and 1976 the beacheroded, and in 1976, about 30,000 cubicyards of sand were brought from a fossilbeach ridge (sand dunes) at Mokuleia onthe north coast of Oahu, and placed onthe beach (Campbell and Moberly 1978).


Kewalo Basin was constructed in 1945.It is at the site of the small basin which isshown on U.S. Coast & Geodetic Sur-vey Chart 4132, May 5, 1927. Thepresent berthing basin was dredged in thereef, and a navigation (entrance) chan-nel dredged across the reef (USACE, Pa-cific Ocean Division 1971).]

BEACH WIDTH AND AREACHANGES; MEASUREMENTS

FROM VERTICAL AERIALPHOTOS

Shoreline changes were investigatedby Edward K. Noda and Associates Inc.(July 1991). The data are in their reportCoastal Processes and Conceptual De-sign Considerations for Waikiki BeachImprovement. Detailed data from 15 ver-tical aerial photographs are in several fig-ures and a large insert in their report.Their summaries of beach areas and av-erage beach widths are reproduced hereinas Tables 1 and 2.

One of the reviewers referred to a laterstudy, of which the author was not aware.This work, by Miller and Fletcher (2003),includes data from aerial photos (1951,1970, 1975, 1985, 1992, 1999, 2001) and

a series of twenty-two cross-shore beachprofiles surveyed in 2000-2002.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe author wishes to thank his friend

and colleague of more than 50 years,Orville T. Magoon, for his extensive help(such as copies of newspaper articles,historic postcards and photos), discus-sions and encouragement in this study;Orville grew up in his family’s home atthe ocean’s edge at the foot of DiamondHead. The collections of the Water Re-sources Center Archives, University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, were and are im-portant. The enthusiastic help of its di-rector, Linda Vida, and all of the Archivesstaff (Paul Atwood, Kady Ferris, TrinaPundurs) was of great value. Judith Bow-man, curator of the U.S. Army Museumof Hawaii, kindly sent me valuable in-formation about the construction of FortDeRussy, correspondence and historicphotos, and copies of pertinent newspa-per and other articles. Deanne DuPontof the Bishop Museum Archives was veryhelpful in finding and having copiesmade of historic photographs of Waikikiin its archives. The author appreciates thehelp of Barbara Guild, who provided in-

Table 2. Summary comparison of Waikiki Beach areas and average beach width 1952 and 1990.(From Edward K. Noda and Associates Inc., July 1991, p.10.)

SECTION OF BEACH BEACH AREA (SQ.FT.) AVG. BEACH WIDTH (FT.) CHANGE (+/-)1952 1990 1952 1990 AREA (SF)

WIDTH (FT)REACH A: 0 193,200 0 175 +193,200Ala Wai Harbor-Hilton Pier +175REACH B: 63,100 192,200 37 113 +129,100Hilton Pier-DeRussy Groin +76REACH C: 27,100 46,200 19 32 +19,200DeRussy Groin-Royal Hawaiian Groin +13REACH D: 120,200 209,800 72 126 +89,500Royal Hawaiian Groin-Kuhlo Beach +54REACH E: 126,600 110,700 87 76 -15,900Kuhlo Beach (within crib walls) -11REACH F: 75,400 120,800 72 115 +45,400Kapahulu Drain-Queens Surf Groin +43REACH G: 0 31,100 0 25 +31,100Queens Surf Groin-Natatorium +25REACH H: 12,900 53,600 21 85 +40,600Natatorium-Colony Surf Groin +64

TOTAL REACH A-H 425,300 957,500 41 93 +532,200(10,290 LF) +52

formative newspaper articles on Waikikiand related coastal zone managementitems. Many thank are due to Edward K.Noda for providing reports his engineer-ing company prepared about WaikikiBeach and the Ala Wai Canal. Manythanks are due to Stanley J. Boc Jr. ofthe USACE Honolulu District, for pro-viding copies of several environmentalreports on Fort DeRussy Beach, and per-tinent USACE Honolulu District corre-spondence (1958-1977). Thanks are dueto Paul A. Dolan of the Outrigger CanoeClub for sending historical articles andphotos. The author thanks Marvin Tingof the state of Hawaii’s Survey Divisionfor providing copies of informative oldmaps and charts of Waikiki and the off-shore waters. Thanks are due to SamLemmo of Hawaii Department of Landand Natural Resources for providing per-tinent information. The author is grate-ful to Dolan Eversole, of the Universityof Hawaii Sea Grant College Programand the Hawaii Dept. Land and NaturalResources, for showing me the site of theKuhio Beach Nourishment Project whichhad just been completed (December2006-January 2007).


1825. Waiatite (Waikiki) depicted on thechart “Sandwich Islands. South Coastof Woahoo and Honoruru Harbour,”surveyed by Lieut. C.R. Malden, R.N.,Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty,Great Britain; first printed 1841;corrections, 1857.

1837, 7 November. Tsunami (source,Chile).

1866. King Kamehameha V oceanfronthouse at Waikiki.

1868. Tsunami. Reef bared at Waikiki.1877. Kapiolani Park opened; Waikiki Road

to its entrance.1880, circa. Bridge/ causeway built (across

Ku’ekaunaki Stream mouth), atentrance to Kapiolani Park; at edge ofocean.

1880. North Pacific Ocean, SandwichIslands, Southside of Oahu, chart byU.S. Navy Hydrographic Office;extensive updates April 1891, July1892.

1881. Long Branch Baths built on beach, atthe water’s edge.

1881, 1888. Map of Waikiki, S.E. Bishop.1890. Seawall (highway retaining wall) 390-

feet long built to protect Waikiki Road(renamed Kalakaua Avenue in 1905) -replaced part of bridge and causewaynear entrance to Kapiolani Park.

1890, circa. Pier built at QueenLiliuokalani’s beach property.

1890. W.C. Peacock pier built (later calledMoana Hotel pier).

1895, circa. Waikiki Villa built, encroachedon beach berm; part built on piles overbeach face.

1897. Map of Waikiki, M.D. Monsarrat.1898. Sans Souci Hotel opened. Partly on

piles over water.1899. James B. Castle home built, partly on

piles; seawall.1900, prior to. 867-foot long highway

retaining wall (seawall) built alongWaikiki Road (renamed KalakauaAvenue in 1905).

1901. Moana Hotel opened. Restaurant onpiles over beach and water.

1901. Seawall, 230 feet long, built atMoana Hotel.

1902. Trans-Pacific communications cablebrought to shore along KapuaEntrance (channel).

1904. Original aquarium opened.1905. Waikiki Road renamed Kalakaua

Avenue.1906. Honolulu Seaside Hotel opened;

seawall; grounds encroached onbeach.

1906 - 1910, sometime between. Concretewall (groin) built between Moana Hoteland Outrigger Canoe Club, on“Diamond Head” side of ApuakehauStream.

1907. “Public Baths” built on shorefront,partly on piles, in Kapiolani Park; coralremoved from offshore, and bottomdeepened.

APPENDIX:Chronology of significant coastal events at Waikiki, 1825-2007

1907. Map of Honolulu, with details ofWaikiki, by Chas. V.E. Dove.

1908. Outrigger Canoe Club located atbeach front between Seaside andMoana hotels, “Ewa” side of mouth ofApuakehau Stream.

1908 and later. Coral removed from somenearshore sea-bathing areas.

1909, circa. Great quantities of sandremoved from premises of QueenLiliuokalani, and Fort DeRussy.

1909. Channel probably dredged thoughreef, to get dredge to Fort DeRussysite.

1909. Fort DeRussy; seawall constructed.1909-1910. Dredging of reef flat for fill of

wetlands, in construction of FortDeRussy.

1910, 9 August. Hawaiian Dredging Co.completed its contract to fill infishponds opposite Fort DeRussy.

1909-1913. U.S. Army Engineer survey ofWaikiki etc., USGS topographic mapof 1917.

1909-1914, and other. Apuakehau Streamflooded on occasions, with largequantities of silt and debris transportedto shore. Proposals made to divert thestream.

1911-1919, sometime, several years.Cassidy’s Point. Barrier built whichtrapped littoral sand; high water lineadvanced 300 feet; seawall built tohold it.

1913. 69-ton coast artillery gun brought toFort DeRussy through reef. Probablyentrance channel was increased indepth to do this.

1913. Beach eroded in vicinity of FortDeRussy, in front of Wilder’s home,and nearby.

1913-1914. Seawalls constructed afterbeach eroded, between Fort DeRussyand site of future Sheraton Hotel; seebelow.

1914. Seawall 290 feet long built, probablyon Wilder’s property.

1914?, “prior to 1928”. Seawall 430 feetlong built in front of Gray’s Hotel, anda seawall 225 feet long built on“Diamond Head side” of it.

1916. Additional 1150 feet of seawall builtat Fort DeRussy seaward of the shore;total length of seawalls probably now1,775 feet. Area landward of newseawall filled with dredged material,26,343 cu. yds.

1916. Material dredged from offshore forfilling old duck ponds in Fort DeRussy(1,118,656 sq. ft. area, requiring134,642 cu. yds.).

1916. Seawall 210 feet long built in front ofwhat is now (2002) the Elks Club.

1916. Seawall 208 feet long built in front ofwhat is now (2002) the New OtaniKaimana Beach Hotel.

1917. Fort DeRussy. Concrete box culvert/groin 70-feet long built at “DiamondHead” boundary.

1919. Pan Pacific Association Committee’sreport on Waikiki Beach problems.

1919, prior to, also 1920. Several seawallsbuilt along most (all?) of KapiolaniPark.

1920. Map of Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii,with details of Waikiki, by M.D.Monsarrat.

1921-1924, 1928. Ala Wai Canal, draining,wetland reclamation and mosquitocontrol projects.

1924, circa. Streams no longer flow into theocean at Waikiki.

1925. Kewalo Basin wharf built and channeldredged in reef.

1925-1927. Construction of Royal HawaiianHotel; new seawall built shoreward ofold seawall.

1926-1929. Eight groins constructedbetween Royal Hawaiian Hotel andFort DeRussy.

1927. Groin (170 feet long) built atnorthwesterly boundary of RoyalHawaiian Hotel property.

1927. Experimental groins built of sandbagsor wood planks between RoyalHawaiian and Gray’s hotels.

1927. Concrete (groin, jetty) betweenOutrigger Canoe Club and MoanaHotel, removed.

1927. More fill placed in Fort DeRussy.1927. Engineering Association of Hawaii,

Committee on Waikiki BeachImprovement study and report.

1927. The Natatorium built, 375 feet long,extending 200 feet onto reef.

1928. Kewalo Basin - Ala Wai Canal shore-parallel navigation channel dredged inreef.

1929. YWCA groin built, 110 feet long.1929. Experiment in pumping sand from

reef flat through pipeline to shore forbeach fill at Halekulani Hotel.

1930. Groin at westerly boundary of RoyalHawaiian Hotel rebuilt, and lengthenedto 368 feet.

1930. Pier at Moana Hotel removed, afterbeing declared unsafe

1934. Queen Liliuokalani’s pier removed,after being declared unsafe.

1934. Ala Moana Park. Coral fill, toppedwith sand placed along the entirelength of seawall, just landward of theshore-parallel boat (navigation)channel.

1935. Ala Wai Yacht Harbor (original)constructed by dredging in the reef.

1937. Severe wave action; beach eroded,seawalls overtopped.

1938. Kuhio Beach. 700-foot-long shore-parallel breakwater (crest at aboutMLLW) constructed; known as the“crib wall.”

1938. Kuhio Beach. Coral patches clearedby dragline excavator shoreward ofbreakwater.

1938. Kuhio Beach. 7,000 cubic yards ofsand placed on shore, in conjunctionwith the new breakwater. Sand broughtfrom other part of Oahu.


1939. Kuhio Beach. Sandbag groin built atwestern end of sand fill.

1945. Kewalo Basin enlarged; berthingbasin and entrance channel dredged inreef.

1946, 1 April. Tsunami (source, AleutianIslands) caused reef to be “bared”during wave drawdowns; seawallsovertopped during runups.

1951. 110,000 cubic yards of sand importedand placed along shore between theBreakers (about 1,000 feetsoutheasterly of the Kapahulu stormdrain/groin) and the “crib wall”northwesterly of Ohua Avenue.

1951. Ala Wai Entrance navigation channeldredged through reef to deep water.

1951. Kapahulu storm drain/groin built; 355feet long, 19 feet wide, top +8.5 feetabove MLLW. An extension of anearlier drain.

1951. Seawall (“terrace wall”) builtsoutheasterly from Kapahulu stormdrain/groin, 425 feet long.

1951-1957. Waikiki Beach DevelopmentProject. A 1965 report to U.S.Congress says 159,000 cubic yards ofsand were placed. This must includethe 110,000 cubic yards of sandplaced in 1951 (see above).

1952-1953. Kuhio Beach. 730-foot longshore-parallel extension built to thesoutheast of the “crib wall” breakwater;crest about +3 feet above MLLW.Swimming area dredged inside theseawall. Sand brought from other partsof Oahu and placed on beach (whatquantity?).

1952, 4 November. Tsunami (source,Kamchatka).

1954-1955. Ala Moana Beach Park. Reefrubble dredged to fill old navigationchannel, 490,000 cubic yards; 54,000cubic yards of sand placed on top for abeach, brought from YokohamaBeach.

1954-1955. Ala Moana Beach Park. Newswimming channel dredged in reef,parallel to new beach along entirereach, extending from 400 to 500 feetoffshore.

1955. Present aquarium built.1956. Duke Kahanamoku Beach and

Lagoon constructed on reef flat, with a150-foot wide, 7-foot deep, swimmingarea offshore the beach. A strip ofshallow reef left in place while dredgedon both side, between the structures atboth ends (see below).

1956. Duke Kahanamoku Beach. A longgroin built to hold western end, and along storm drain/groin built to holdeastern end of beach fill.

1956. Pier and dock built from end of thestorm drain/groin at the eastern end ofDuke Kahanamoku Beach, and basin -5 to -8 feet below MLLW dredged forlarge catamaran. [Narrow channelprobably dredged through reef frombasin to deep water]

1956-1957. Queen’s Surf Beach groin/storm drain built, 360 feet long.

1957. Kapiolani Park Beach. Between32,000 and 35,000 cubic yards of sandplaced on coral base.

1957. Kapiolani Park Beach. Shore-parallelswimming basin dredged in reef andcovered with sandy bottom, justnorthwesterly of The Natatorium.

1957, 9 March. Tsunami (source, AleutianTrench).

1958. Catamaran pier extended at KaiserHawaiian Village (KahanamokuBeach), and basin deepened to -12feet below MLLW; probably.

1959. Kuhio Beach. 18,757 cubic yards ofsand fill placed.

1959. Hurricane Dot1960, 23 May. Tsunami (source, Chile)

caused reef to be “bared” during wavedrawdowns; seawalls overtoppedduring run-ups.

1960s. Fort DeRussy. Pulverized coralplaced as a beach, which became“more like an airfield than a beach.”

1962-1964. Magic Island (actually apeninsula) constructed on 30 acres ofreef flat. Two beaches made, the“inner beach” and the “outer beach.”Detached rubble mound breakers builtseaward of the “outer beach” to protectit and to provide a swimming basin.

1962-1964. Narrow channel dredgedparallel to northwest side of MagicIsland, through most of reef.

1962-1964. Stone seawall built along“Diamond Head” side of Magic Islandand the Ala Wai entrance channel tohold fill.

1963. Outrigger Canoe Club (new - at SansSouci/Kaimana Beach), 1,660 cubicyards of coral fill and 6,000 cubicyards of sand from foundationexcavation placed on beach.

1963. Connecting channel 4½ feet deepdredged in reef, new Outrigger CanoeClub.

1963. A 75-foot-long rubble mound spurjetty built at right angle to the stoneseawall along the Ala Wai entrancechannel.

1963. Groin, 190-feet long, built a little“Ewa” of the new Outrigger CanoeClub.

1963. Bagged concrete groin at northwestend of Kuhio Beach extended.

1964, 24 March. Tsunami (source, Alaska).1966. Maintenance dredging of silt from Ala

Wai Canal.1968. Kuhio Beach. Sand bag groin at

western end of beach extended.1969-1972. Groin built in front of Elks Club.1968-1970. Fort DeRussy. Beach 1,800

feet long constructed in front ofseawall; 82,000 cubic yards of coralmaterial dredged from reef (U.S.Navy’s stockpile) and concrete debrisas base; unwashed crushed coralsand used to cover the fill.

1970. Storm drain box culvert extended inlength from 150 to 418 feet. At eastern(“Diamond Head”) boundary of FortDeRussy.

1972. Fort DeRussy. Rubblemound (stone-face) groin built from beach 160 feet

seaward along Fort DeRussy side ofthe box culvert storm drain. Crestelevation +7 feet above MLLW.

1972. Kuhio Beach and (?) Queen’s SurfBeach sand fill of 82,500 cubic yards(quantity not certain).

1972. Highway retaining seawall (KalakauaAvenue) removed.

1972. Beachwalk park begun, a “linearpark” between Kalakaua Avenue andKuhio and Queen’s Surf Beaches.

1975. Kuhio Beach. 9,500 cubic yards ofsand placed.

1976. Fort DeRussy. Layer of sand 2 feetthick placed over the beach.

1976. Ala Moana Beach Park. 30,000 cubicyards of sand placed on eroded beach.

1978. Maintenance dredging silt from AlaWai canal.

1981. Beach restoration (maintenance),Fort DeRussy.

1982. Hurricane Iwa.1982. Sans Souci pier destroyed as a result

of Hurricane Iwa.1987. Beach restoration (maintenance),

Fort DeRussy.1991. Queen’s Surf Beach. Sidewalk

improvements made followingalignment near the 1952 beachbackshore line, reducing beach area.

1992. Hurricane Iniki. Waves inundatedseaward edge of Ala Moana BeachPark.

1994. Beach restoration (maintenance),Fort DeRussy, and Hawaiian Village(Duke Kahanamoku Beach).

2000. Kuhio Beach. 1,400 cubic yards ofsand dredged from thin pocket in reefoffshore and pumped through apipeline to the beach.

2000. SHOALS bathymetry survey ofWaikiki, and other shallow watercoastal regions of Hawaii, made jointlyby the U.S. Army Corps of Engineersand U.S. Navy.

2002. Sand moved by front-end loader inFeb. from west end of Kaimana Beach(where it accumulated) to east end(from where it had eroded).

2002, 22 August-8 October 2003.Maintenance dredging of silt (andtrash and debris) from Ala Wai Canal(185,801 cubic yards).

2005. Dredging of 10,000 cubic yards ofsand from a thin pocket in the reef flat,and pumping it to shore at KuhioBeach was planned for October 2005,but postponed owing to delay inobtaining the pumps. Project wasfurther delayed for other reasons.

2006, 3 October. Exploring idea to create anew lagoon-type beach next to theWaikiki Aquarium; by Hawaii StateDept. Land and Natural Resources.

2006, 4 December- 5 January 2007. KuhioBeach Nourishment Project; sandpumping to re-nourish beach anddemonstrate the effects of offshoresand retrieved from the reef flat. 8,155cubic yards of sand dredged andpumped to beach; grading completed.

2006-2007. Hawaiian Village LagoonRestoration project


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