Ben Oostdam's Autobiography: 1960-1963

page 37

OAHU, MAUI April, 1962

Our survey of Oahu included the not yet famous surf beach of Waimea , which was still being actively mined to provide - by nightly trucks - the sand for maintaining "Waikiki Beach"....

Three major changes effected in the four decades following our initial survey comprise:

(1) the emphasis on wave- , surf- and tsunami -forecasting, which grew out of Walther Munk's 1963 SIO global wave recording project , so effectively summarized in the video "Waves Across the Pacific".
Locally and regionally, Doak Cox was a leader in the field of Tsunami Warning.
Just in the last few months, the most recent Pacific surf forecasts have become almost instantaneously available on the World Wide Web !
(2) Sand mining at Waimea Beach caused over 200 ft of beach erosion between 1910 and 2000. The practice has been discontinued, as have such "hard" engineering approaches of armoring beaches in attempts to save them. It was found that 1/4 of Oahu beaches and 1/3 of Maui's are lost due to armoring.
(3) Great progress has been made in public education, including that of the many tourists. For example, Waikiki now has some 4 million visitors a year, Hanauma Bay has been declared a coastal and marine preserve with over 1 million visitors a year which have both actual and virtual access to the Hanauma Bay Education Program of SEAGRANT's Extension Service.