The Conference on Coastal Engineering at Long Beach was conceived originally as a local meeting of engineers and scientists interested in shoreline problems and was sponsored by the University of California. It early became evident that there was widespread interest in the subject and that the program should be planned on a more ambitious scale. The aim was to aid engineers by summarizing the present state of the art and science related to the design and planning of coastal works rather than to present a series of original scientific contributions. Starting from a rather comprehensive outline, invitations were issued to recognized authorities to report on specific phases of the subject, and the authors cooperated splendidly both in their treatment of the subjects assigned and in their avoidance of overlapping other subjects. Although much remains to be done in the way of developing reliable design methods, the series of papers presented at the conference and published in this volume do represent a rather thorough summary of coastal engineering as now practiced.