Without regular sand replenishment to provide a buffer to hold the ocean back, damage to homes and infrastructure will become a more common occurrence, said Brett Sanders, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Irvine. “Once the beaches are gone, we are quickly seeing damaging impacts to infrastructure. As soon as the beaches are gone, we lose railroad service, we see displacement of land, concrete gets cracked,” Sanders said.

Henry and Susan Samueli gave $50 million to University of California at Irvine to create three multidisciplinary research institutes in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering. The three institutes will together be known as “Engineering+" and will include a center focused on engineering and health, one on engineering and society, and another on engineering and the environment. Henry Samueli co-founded the semiconductor corporation Broadcom. He also serves as an adjunct professor in the university’s electrical engineering and computer-science department.