Of all the regions of the world's oceans, the nearshore is probably the most immediately relevant to society. Interested parties range from individual tourists and communities to larger government concerns of commerce and defense. Time scales of interest similarly range from short (the length of a vacation for a tourist, or of a military action for defense) to the decade-to-century scale interests required for wise coastal management.
Our connection to these ``consumers'' of nearshore knowledge is largely accomplished through two means. Primary responsibility for interfacing societies civilian interests with the growing body of basic research lies with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers through their Coastal Engineering Research Center (CERC). The state of the art, tested and approved by CERC researchers, is published and made available to the public in the Shore Protection Manual (SPM) [ Coastal Engineering Research Center, 1984]. Often, incorporation of recent results can be slow. However, acceptance of results into the SPM is an important step since design for the coastal environment is risky, and coastal engineering designers must protect themselves from litigation in the case of failure.
The path to the user is more rapid for military applications, presumably due to the reduced likelihood of litigation and the importance of optimizing tactical advantage. Transfer of research results to applied tools takes place through naval laboratories and through contract research to universities and consulting companies. This work has lead to several, excellent predictive tools for the wave and current environment [ Earle, 1989], although prediction of the evolution of the system (beach profiles and sand bar morphology) remains elusive.