A jetty is any of a variety of structures used in river, dock, and maritime works that
are generally carried out in pairs from river banks, or in continuation of river channels
at their outlets into deep water; or out into docks, and outside their entrances; or for
forming basins along the coast for ports in tideless seas. The forms and construction
of these jetties are as varied as their uses, for they are formed sometimes of high open
timber-work, sometimes of low solid projections, and occasionally only differ from breakwaters
in their object. The term derived from the French word jetée, "thrown", and signifies
something thrown out. Jetties at the coast that have been raised and extended help prevent
long shore drift and therefore slow down beach erosion.
For regulating rivers Another form of jetties, wing dams are extended
out, opposite one another, from each bank of a river, at intervals, to contract a wide
channel, and by concentration of the current to produce a deepening.
For berthing at docks Where docks are given sloping sides, openwork
timber jetties are generally carried across the slope, at the ends of which vessels can
lie in deep water or more solid structures are erected over the slope for supporting
coal-tips. Pilework jetties are also constructed in the water outside the entrances to docks
on each side, so as to form an enlarging trumpet-shaped channel between the entrance, lock or tidal
basin and the approach channel, in order to guide vessels in entering or leaving the docks.
Solid jetties, moreover, lined with quay walls, are sometimes carried out into a wide dock,at
right angles to the line of quays at the side, to enlarge the accommodation; and they also
serve, when extended on a large scale from the coast of a tideless sea under shelter
of an outlying breakwater, to form the basins in which vessels lie when discharging and
taking in cargoes in such a port as Marseille. At entrances to jetty harbors
The approach channel to some ports situated on sandy coasts is guided and protected across
the beach by parallel jetties, made solid up to a little above low water of neap tides,
on which open timber-work is erected, provided with a planked platform at the top raised
above the highest tides. The channel between the jetties was originally maintained by tidal
scour from low-lying areas close to the coast, and subsequently by the current from sluicing
basins; but it is now often considerably deepened by sand-pump dredging. It is protected to
some extent by the solid portion of the jetties from the inroad of sand from the adjacent
beach, and from the levelling action of the waves; while the upper open portion serves
to indicate the channel and to guide the vessels, if necessary. The bottom part of the older
jetties, in such long-established jetty ports as Calais, Dunkirk and Ostend, was composed
of clay or rubble stone, covered on the top by fascine-work or pitching, but the deepening
of the jetty channel by dredging and the need that arose for its enlargement led to the
reconstruction of the jetties at these ports. The nes jetties at Dunkirk were founded in
the sandy beach, by the aid of compressed air, at a depth of 22.75 feet. below low water
of spring tides; and their solid masonry portion, on a concrete foundation was raised 50 feet.
above low water of neap tides. At lagoon outlets
A small tidal rise spreading tidal water over a large expanse of lagoon or inland backwater
causes the influx and efflux of the tide to maintain a deep channel through a narrows
no longer confined by a bank on each side, becomes dispersed, and owing to the reduction
of its scouring force, is no longer able at a moderate distance from the shore effectually
to resist the action of tending to form a continuous beach in front of the outlet. Hence
a bar is produced that diminishes the available depth in the approach channel. By carrying
out a solid jetty over the bar, however on each side of the outlet, the tidal currents
are concentrated in the channel across the bar, and lower it by scour. Thus the available
depth of the approach channels to Venice through the Malamocco and Lido outlets from the Venetian
Lagoon have been deepened several feet over their bars by jetties of rubble, carried out
across the foreshore into deep water on both sides of the channel. Other examples are provided
by the long jetties extended into the sea in front of the entrance to Charleston harbour,
formerly constructed of fascines weighed down with stone and logs, but subsequently of rubble
stone, and by the two converging rubble jetties carried out from each shore of Dublin Bay
for deepening the approach to Dublin harbour. Rivers
At the outlet of tideless rivers Jetties have been constructed on each side
of the outlet river of some of the rivers flowing into the Baltic, with the objects
of prolonging the scour of the river and protecting the channel from being shoaled by the littoral
drift along the shore. The most interesting application of parallel jetties is in lowering
the bar in front of one of the mouths of a deltaic river flowing into a tide — a virtual
prolongation of its less sea, by extending the scour of the river out to the bar by banks.
Jetties prolonging the Sulina branch of the Danube into the Black Sea, and the south pass
of the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, formed of rubble stone and concrete
blocks, and respectively, have enabled the discharge of these rivers to scour away the
bars obstructing the access to them; and they have also carried the sediment-bearing waters
sufficiently far out to come under the influence of littoral currents, which, by conveying
away some of the sediment, postpone the eventual formation of a fresh bar farther out.
At the mouth of tidal rivers Where a river is narrow near its mouth, has
a generally feeble discharge and a small tidal range, the sea is liable on an exposed coast
to block up its outlet during severe storms. The river is thus forced to seek another exit
at a weak spot of the beach, which along a low coast may be at some distance off; and
this new outlet in its turn may be blocked up, so that the river from time to time shifts
the position of its mouth. This inconvenient cycle of changes may be stopped by fixing
the outlet of the river at a suitable site, by carrying a jetty on each side of this outlet
across the beach, thereby concentrating its discharge in a definite channel and protecting
the mouth from being blocked up by littoral drift. This system was long ago applied to
the shifting outlet of the river Yare to the south of Yarmouth, and has also been successfully
employed for fixing the wandering mouth of the Adur near Shoreham, and of the Adour flowing
into the Bay of Biscay below Bayonne. When a new channel was cut across the Hoek van
Holland to provide a straighter and deeper outlet channel for the river Maas, forming
the approach channel to Rotterdam, low, broad, parallel jetties, composed of fascine mattresses
weighted with stone, were carried across the foreshore into the sea on either side of the
new mouth of the river, to protect the jetty channel from littoral drift, and cause the
discharge of the river to maintain it out to deep water. The channel, also, beyond the
outlet of the river Nervion into the Bay of Biscay has been regulated by jetties; and
by extending the south-west jetty out for nearly 0.5 miles with a curve concave towards
the channel the outlet has not only been protected to some extent from the easterly drift, but
the bar in front has been lowered by the scour produced by the discharge of the river following
the concave bend of the southwest jetty. As the outer portion of this jetty was exposed
to westerly storms from the Bay of Biscay before the outer harbour was constructed,
it has been given the form and strength of a breakwater situated in shallow water.
See also Breakwater
Dock Groyne
Jettied floors in medieval houses Mole
Pier Port
Spiral Jetty Wharf
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh,
ed.. Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press.
Humboldt Bay Recreation & Conservation District: Humboldt Bay Harbor Setting