Middletown commission hears modeling that points to targeted sand placement, nearshore stone to slow erosion at Second and Third Beaches

Coastal Systems Research and Planning told the Town of Middletown Beach Commission on a special meeting that updated mapping and local modeling identify concentrated erosion "hot spots" at the east end of Second Beach and near the boat ramp at Third Beach and that targeted sand placement and nearshore stone could reduce sediment loss.

The firm’s lead presenter, Dr. Dan Barone, described a three-part technical approach that paired a 90-year shoreline-change analysis with a regional hydrodynamic model for Narragansett Bay and a higher-resolution local morphological model for Second and Third Beaches. "The average rate across everything was around, you know, about a tenth of a meter per year," Barone said, noting most transects showed erosion but only a minority were statistically significant.

The presentation matters because commission members and residents said recent winters left dunes nearly vertical, sent sand into the Second Beach parking lot after storms and left unusual rock migration from the east end toward the middle of the shoreline. Coastal Systems recommended a set of near-term and longer-term options to reduce that damage and to document change so the town can support FEMA reimbursement claims.

Coastal Systems’ methods and findings

Barone said the team extracted shoreline positions from aerial photography dating back to 1939 and produced 52 transects at 100-meter spacing (32 on…