This book is based on the author's 49 years of experience as a practicing coastal engineer and 34 years as professor of coastal engineering and management at Queen's University. The book is therefore thoroughly practical in nature, but it also reflects newly relevant issues, such as consequences of failure, impacts of rising sea levels, aging infrastructure, real estate development, and contemporary decision making, design and education.

This textbook is useful for undergraduate students, postgraduate students and practicing engineers. It covers waves, structures, sediment movement, coastal management, and contemporary coastal design and decision making. It presents both basic principles and engineering solutions. It discusses the traditional methods of analysis and synthesis (design), but also contemporary design methodologies, such as working with environmental impacts.

The second edition expanded greatly on the topics of failure and resilience that surfaced as a result of recent disasters from hurricane surges and tsunamis. It updated the discussion of design and decision making for the 21st century, with many new examples.

This third edition develops some of these topics further, but its largest new changes is the chapter on climate change. This chapter presents the basics of climate change and then goes on to stress the practical implications of the impacts of climate change, focusing on what is of importance to coastal and fluvial specialists.