Brazosport High School
School Website: https://bphs.brazosportisd.net/
2022-2023 field trip data: BrazosportHS2022-23v2.pdf
Galleries: 2018-2019 | 2019-2020 | 2020-2021 | 2021-2022 | 2022-2023 | 2023-2024
Brazosport High School in Freeport, Texas, joined THSCMP during the 2018‒2019 academic year. Senior AP Environmental Science students collect data from sites at Surfside Beach and Quintana Beach. Three of the monitoring sites (SURF2, SURF4, and jetty park) are located in Surfside Beach on the southern end of Follets Island (Fig. 1). A fourth site (QUIN1) is located in Brazoria County’s Quintana Beach County Park (Fig. 1).
Figure 1. Location map of Brazosport High School monitoring sites.
Significant changes to the beach and small dune system on Follets Island and Quintana Beach have been documented over the Brazosport’s short monitoring. At the QUIN1 monitoring location, the small foredune that was present was destroyed and the vegetation line moved 15 meters landward between January 2020 and May 2021 (Fig. 2). At SURF 2 the vegetation line landward and the profile elevation was lowered at the datum point (Fig. 3). Students map the shoreline position in a segment between Surfside Jetty County Park and a rock revetment protecting Beach Drive (Fig. 3). At times, the shoreline position (wet/dry line) is beneath or behind structures that are located on the beach. A new site, SURF4, was established at Stahlman Park in Surfside Beach in early 2022 to replace the beach profile lost due to erosion at SURF1 (Fig. 3). Initial measurements at this new profile location created a baseline dataset to monitor changes in the beach and dune system into the future.
Figure 2. Shoreline mapping and photography at site QUIN1 at the Quintana Beach County Park. (A) GPS mapped vegetation line positions from April 2019 through May 2023. The vegetation line position had been stable prior to the 2020 hurricane season. By May 2021 the line had moved 15 meters landward and the profile datum point was lost due to erosion. (B) Photos of the QUIN1 looking southwest on January 30, 2020 and May 18, 2022. Notice the landward movement in the vegetation line position (distance between beach palapas and vegetation) between the 2 photographs.
Figure 3. Brazosport High School monitoring data at location in Surfside Beach. (A) Beach profile data at SURF2 showing changes in the topography between October 2018 and May 2023. (B) SURF2 vegetation line looking northeast on May 17, 2022. (C) GPS mapped shoreline positions from October 2018 through May 2023 between rock revetment projects at Surfside Jetty County Park and Beach Drive. (D) Beach profile data at SURF4 in Stahlman Park.
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