Experts in Coastal Engineering and Geomorphology
NHC is pleased to support the CZC 2025 Conference in Charlottetown PEI. Our experience in coastal geomorphology and engineering spans three decades – from analysis of coastal and shoreline processes along the Fraser River Delta in the 1990s, through intensive coastal geomorphology studies and monitoring of Roberts Bank for Port Metro Vancouver in the 2000s – which have formed the basis for the broad spectrum of coastal work that NHC undertakes today.
Today we are at the forefront of the “building with nature” movement and regularly contribute to shoreline stewardship initiatives, including GreenShores and Coastal Zone Canada’s Nature Based Coastal Solutions community of practice.
Meet the Team at CZC 2025
Our professionals understand that every project faces specific challenges and every client has unique perspectives that require understanding, respect, and accommodation. We are known for combining practical knowledge and experience with sophisticated modelling and analysis to identify and develop solutions.
Our representatives at this year’s CZC conference include:
NHC's Presentations at CZC 2025
Presenter: Phil Osborne, PhD, PGeo
Presentation Date and Time: Tuesday, June 10, 10:30am – 12:00pm, 4F, MCDH-246
Sediment-based solutions are nature-based solution (NBS) that rely on natural coastal processes to re-shape placed sediment to form a dynamic beach, dune, berm, or shoal that can dissipate wave and storm energy and provide both flood and erosion protection. Mixtures of sand, gravel, cobble and boulders are often the foundation for nature-based infrastructure in estuarine, deltaic, wetland, and open coast environments. Sediment provides a dynamic but often highly effective “structural basis” for flood and erosion resilience on which coastal processes can operate and actively contribute to reshaping while providing a co-benefit by providing suitable medium for hosting plants and biota. Sediment often works well in combination with both vegetation and rock (hybrid) structures.
We explore the unique challenges in design of sediment-based and hybrid NBS intended to provide coastal flood and erosion protection and meet habitat enhancement objectives with reference to relevant case studies. The long-recognized interaction between time and space scales in geomorphology becomes increasingly relevant as a design consideration for successful and sustainable NBS. In particular, the scale of nature-based projects needs to be commensurate with the scale of associated hazard and risk including climate change drivers; this may be challenged by regulatory context or upland development pressure which constrain available accommodation space. Dynamic sediment-based solutions require consideration of a broader spectrum of design conditions and a wider range of parameters to balance preservation of sediment dynamics while addressing project resilience and hazard mitigation objectives at practical space and time scales relative to more static, grey infrastructure.
Presenter: Kylie Knox, PEng
Presentation Date and Time: Tuesday, June 10, 3:00pm – 4:30pm, 6F, MCDH-246
The Courtenay River serves as a critical salmon migration corridor, supporting the recently listed East Vancouver Island Chinook salmon runs. The K’ómoks Estuary, where the river meets tidewater, is highly productive and ecologically significant, ranking among the top ten Southwestern BC estuaries.
The Dyke Road Park Project is a joint-venture between Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD), Stewardship Centre for BC, the K’ómoks First Nation, and others to naturalize a public park while restoring the ecosystem and building in coastal resilience. Located in the heart of the K’ómoks Estuary, the project’s objectives are ecological and cultural restoration; attainment of Green Shores Gold standard to provide a reference for future projects; and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
In March 2022, the joint-venture group assembled a multidisciplinary project team to present ideas for project concepts. The environmental restoration plan developed for the site focused on intertidal wetland restoration, off-channel habitat creation, tidal marsh zones, riparian tidal forest restoration, and green design of the park infrastructure. Additionally, it addresses climate change impacts through designing infrastructure to the designated flood construction level and sea level rise adaptation. Construction began in August 2024.
This presentation explores the challenges of fitting a small project site into the Green Shores template and lessons learned for other nature-based projects. Green Shores projects are an excellent standard to aim for however the prerequisites can be unintentionally restrictive. Dyke Road Park stands as a testament to collaborative efforts in restoring coastal ecosystems and building resilience in the face of climate change.
Click here to learn more.
Presenter: Justin McKibbon, MASc, PEng
Presentation Date and Time: Wednesday, June 11, 8:30am – 10:30am, 7E, MCDH-243
In the field of coastal protection, sustainable solutions generally strive to provide efficient coastal flood and erosion risk management functions, while delivering environmental and other societal co-benefits, such as maintaining waterfront accessibility, preserving its recreational uses and cultural significance, reducing demands on limited resources, minimizing the environmental footprint of projects, conserving coastal ecotones, improving the ecological functions of the shoreline or of coastal defences and minimizing greenhouse gas emissions. Collectively, however, these objectives can sometimes become paradoxical and make developing a balanced coastal management approach challenging.
Modern strategies must consider the broader settings in which shore protections are implemented in order to reduce the impacts of piecemeal projects. In this context, the long-term cumulative effects of recurring, low-impact interventions, like beach nourishments for instance, can sometimes match or even outweigh the stresses caused by high-impact and more invasive interventions, like groyne construction, depending on site conditions and procurement details.
With this in mind, the proposed presentation intends to highlight common reflections often considered by practitioners during project development and how they influence solution selection. A review of the typical coastal protection solutions (sediment-based, vegetation-based and hybrid solutions) and a summary of their capabilities and limitations in achieving holistic and sustainable coastal management approaches will be presented. The discussion will then identify some of the trade-offs required in order to achieve social and environmental acceptability, while reflecting upon how best to prioritize sustainability objectives.
Presenter: Alexandra Forsythe, MASc, PEng
Presentation Date and Time: Tuesday, June 10, 3:00pm – 4:30pm, 6B, PAC-112S
This study presents detailed designs for five community-level projects along the Strait of Georgia shoreline between Little Qualicum River and Craig Bay, within the Parksville-Qualicum Beach Wildlife Management Area, British Columbia. These sites were selected based on their vulnerability to coastal processes and their potential to support forage fish habitat. Priority was given to areas with existing anthropogenic modifications, such as homes in the backshore, sanitary sewer lines, or shoreline armouring, ensuring the focus remained on community-scale solutions.
Coastal processes typically span larger areas than single properties, and projects designed at the scale of a coastal reach have higher chances of success. This approach facilitates better integration with physical processes and ecosystems. This project’s collaboration with all levels of government and First Nations communities strengthened the community-scale focus and ensured inclusivity in planning. The five sites exhibit varying existing conditions, including hard armoured shorelines, localized erosion, and actively eroding coastal bluffs. The detailed designs emphasize nature-based solutions, such as beach nourishment strategies combined with minimal structural interventions, including cobble groynes for sediment retention or headland structures where wave energy exposure is high.
These designs were selected to integrate seamlessly into the surrounding ecosystems while enhancing habitat variability in the upper intertidal zone. The overarching goal is to preserve and enhance shoreline ecological value by restoring and protecting habitat, mitigating erosion, and reducing additional shoreline armouring. The projects balance habitat restoration with sustainable shoreline protection for long-term community and environmental resilience.
Presenter: Kate Lappan, EIT
Presentation Date and Time: Monday, June 9, 1:00pm – 2:30pm, 2C, PAC-110A
This study presents a robust flood construction level (FCL) analysis for the Alders Beach Resort, which is a small property located on the east coast of Vancouver Island, bordering the Strait of Georgia. The resort has been owned by a group of 15 families since 1973, who are looking to rebuild six of the property’s summer rental cottages for maintenance. Due to the property’s elevation, which makes it vulnerable to coastal flooding, the habitable spaces of the cottages must be built above an FCL. A site-specific assessment was conducted that considered unique topographic features to provide a representative value for the proposed redevelopment.
This study was distinctive as it incorporated a joint probability analysis of extreme waves and water levels occurring simultaneously in the Strait of Georgia to minimize overly conservative inputs for wave run-up calculations and numerical modelling. Six combinations of water levels and significant wave heights were extracted from a 200-year equal probability curve, and a phase-averaging model (SWAN) was used to simulate the corresponding wave climates nearshore. Both empirical calculations and a phase-resolving model (SWASH) were used to simulate wave effects onto the shore. FCL values were calculated and ultimately it was recommended that one of the cottages be relocated. This study shows the importance of planning for the future of the coast (e.g. future sea level rise) and allowing room for nature, while aiming to preserve community and history. In the future, nature-based solutions may be designed and implemented to further strengthen the site’s coastal resilience.
Presenter: Phil Osborne, PhD, PGeo
Presentation Date and Time: Tuesday, June 10, 10:30am – 12:00pm, 4F, MCDH-246
Sediment-based solutions are nature-based solution (NBS) that rely on natural coastal processes to re-shape placed sediment to form a dynamic beach, dune, berm, or shoal that can dissipate wave and storm energy and provide both flood and erosion protection. Mixtures of sand, gravel, cobble and boulders are often the foundation for nature-based infrastructure in estuarine, deltaic, wetland, and open coast environments. Sediment provides a dynamic but often highly effective “structural basis” for flood and erosion resilience on which coastal processes can operate and actively contribute to reshaping while providing a co-benefit by providing suitable medium for hosting plants and biota. Sediment often works well in combination with both vegetation and rock (hybrid) structures.
We explore the unique challenges in design of sediment-based and hybrid NBS intended to provide coastal flood and erosion protection and meet habitat enhancement objectives with reference to relevant case studies. The long-recognized interaction between time and space scales in geomorphology becomes increasingly relevant as a design consideration for successful and sustainable NBS. In particular, the scale of nature-based projects needs to be commensurate with the scale of associated hazard and risk including climate change drivers; this may be challenged by regulatory context or upland development pressure which constrain available accommodation space. Dynamic sediment-based solutions require consideration of a broader spectrum of design conditions and a wider range of parameters to balance preservation of sediment dynamics while addressing project resilience and hazard mitigation objectives at practical space and time scales relative to more static, grey infrastructure.
Presenter: Kylie Knox, PEng
Presentation Date and Time: Tuesday, June 10, 3:00pm – 4:30pm, 6F, MCDH-246
The Courtenay River serves as a critical salmon migration corridor, supporting the recently listed East Vancouver Island Chinook salmon runs. The K’ómoks Estuary, where the river meets tidewater, is highly productive and ecologically significant, ranking among the top ten Southwestern BC estuaries.
The Dyke Road Park Project is a joint-venture between Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD), Stewardship Centre for BC, the K’ómoks First Nation, and others to naturalize a public park while restoring the ecosystem and building in coastal resilience. Located in the heart of the K’ómoks Estuary, the project’s objectives are ecological and cultural restoration; attainment of Green Shores Gold standard to provide a reference for future projects; and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
In March 2022, the joint-venture group assembled a multidisciplinary project team to present ideas for project concepts. The environmental restoration plan developed for the site focused on intertidal wetland restoration, off-channel habitat creation, tidal marsh zones, riparian tidal forest restoration, and green design of the park infrastructure. Additionally, it addresses climate change impacts through designing infrastructure to the designated flood construction level and sea level rise adaptation. Construction began in August 2024.
This presentation explores the challenges of fitting a small project site into the Green Shores template and lessons learned for other nature-based projects. Green Shores projects are an excellent standard to aim for however the prerequisites can be unintentionally restrictive. Dyke Road Park stands as a testament to collaborative efforts in restoring coastal ecosystems and building resilience in the face of climate change.
Click here to learn more.
Presenter: Justin McKibbon, MASc, PEng
Presentation Date and Time: Wednesday, June 11, 8:30am – 10:30am, 7E, MCDH-243
In the field of coastal protection, sustainable solutions generally strive to provide efficient coastal flood and erosion risk management functions, while delivering environmental and other societal co-benefits, such as maintaining waterfront accessibility, preserving its recreational uses and cultural significance, reducing demands on limited resources, minimizing the environmental footprint of projects, conserving coastal ecotones, improving the ecological functions of the shoreline or of coastal defences and minimizing greenhouse gas emissions. Collectively, however, these objectives can sometimes become paradoxical and make developing a balanced coastal management approach challenging.
Modern strategies must consider the broader settings in which shore protections are implemented in order to reduce the impacts of piecemeal projects. In this context, the long-term cumulative effects of recurring, low-impact interventions, like beach nourishments for instance, can sometimes match or even outweigh the stresses caused by high-impact and more invasive interventions, like groyne construction, depending on site conditions and procurement details.
With this in mind, the proposed presentation intends to highlight common reflections often considered by practitioners during project development and how they influence solution selection. A review of the typical coastal protection solutions (sediment-based, vegetation-based and hybrid solutions) and a summary of their capabilities and limitations in achieving holistic and sustainable coastal management approaches will be presented. The discussion will then identify some of the trade-offs required in order to achieve social and environmental acceptability, while reflecting upon how best to prioritize sustainability objectives.
Presenter: Alexandra Forsythe, MASc, PEng
Presentation Date and Time: Tuesday, June 10, 3:00pm – 4:30pm, 6B, PAC-112S
This study presents detailed designs for five community-level projects along the Strait of Georgia shoreline between Little Qualicum River and Craig Bay, within the Parksville-Qualicum Beach Wildlife Management Area, British Columbia. These sites were selected based on their vulnerability to coastal processes and their potential to support forage fish habitat. Priority was given to areas with existing anthropogenic modifications, such as homes in the backshore, sanitary sewer lines, or shoreline armouring, ensuring the focus remained on community-scale solutions.
Coastal processes typically span larger areas than single properties, and projects designed at the scale of a coastal reach have higher chances of success. This approach facilitates better integration with physical processes and ecosystems. This project’s collaboration with all levels of government and First Nations communities strengthened the community-scale focus and ensured inclusivity in planning. The five sites exhibit varying existing conditions, including hard armoured shorelines, localized erosion, and actively eroding coastal bluffs. The detailed designs emphasize nature-based solutions, such as beach nourishment strategies combined with minimal structural interventions, including cobble groynes for sediment retention or headland structures where wave energy exposure is high.
These designs were selected to integrate seamlessly into the surrounding ecosystems while enhancing habitat variability in the upper intertidal zone. The overarching goal is to preserve and enhance shoreline ecological value by restoring and protecting habitat, mitigating erosion, and reducing additional shoreline armouring. The projects balance habitat restoration with sustainable shoreline protection for long-term community and environmental resilience.
Presenter: Kate Lappan, EIT
Presentation Date and Time: Monday, June 9, 1:00pm – 2:30pm, 2C, PAC-110A
This study presents a robust flood construction level (FCL) analysis for the Alders Beach Resort, which is a small property located on the east coast of Vancouver Island, bordering the Strait of Georgia. The resort has been owned by a group of 15 families since 1973, who are looking to rebuild six of the property’s summer rental cottages for maintenance. Due to the property’s elevation, which makes it vulnerable to coastal flooding, the habitable spaces of the cottages must be built above an FCL. A site-specific assessment was conducted that considered unique topographic features to provide a representative value for the proposed redevelopment.
This study was distinctive as it incorporated a joint probability analysis of extreme waves and water levels occurring simultaneously in the Strait of Georgia to minimize overly conservative inputs for wave run-up calculations and numerical modelling. Six combinations of water levels and significant wave heights were extracted from a 200-year equal probability curve, and a phase-averaging model (SWAN) was used to simulate the corresponding wave climates nearshore. Both empirical calculations and a phase-resolving model (SWASH) were used to simulate wave effects onto the shore. FCL values were calculated and ultimately it was recommended that one of the cottages be relocated. This study shows the importance of planning for the future of the coast (e.g. future sea level rise) and allowing room for nature, while aiming to preserve community and history. In the future, nature-based solutions may be designed and implemented to further strengthen the site’s coastal resilience.
Demonstrated Successes
NHC has been a leader in the field of hydrotechnical engineering and geoscience since its formation in 1972. For the past 30 years we have contributed our expertise in hydrology, hydraulics, and geomorphology to the restoration of natural ecosystems. Working closely with subject matter experts in ecology, biology, water quality, and urban planning, NHC has been at the forefront of efforts in British Columbia to address the impacts that past human activities have had on our rivers, lakes and watersheds, coastal estuaries and foreshores.
Despite our relatively small size, we offer a full range of geoscience and engineering services related to riverine and coastal restoration and flood mitigation, including river engineering design, flood modelling and mapping, nature-based mitigation for flood and erosion protection, fluvial geomorphology, sediment transport, data collection and monitoring, project design and costing, support for permitting, construction engineering and monitoring, and nature-based ecological enhancements.
Several examples of our Coastal Engineering projects are provided below.
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Get in touch with us today to learn how we can help you with your upcoming water resources project.