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Man vs. The Sea at the Shore
Published in Robert A. Ragotzkie, J. Robert Moore, Man and the Marine Environment, 2018
Orrin H. Pilkey, William J. Neal
In the beginning let us assume that all means of stabilizing open ocean shoreline, i.e., preventing them from eroding, have an adverse effect on the natural shoreline system. This is not to say that therefore no shorelines should be stabilized; that we should allow our major coastal cities to fall in as the sea level rises, or that we should not replace any recreational beaches. The point to be made is that coastal geologists are in complete agreement that our many attempts at halting shoreline erosion have adversly affected the natural system in a variety of ways. The most obvious adverse effect and the one with the greatest sociological impact, has been very significant long-term degradation of our recreational beaches (Figure 1). Less obvious adverse effects include alteration of, or complete removal of natural storm response mechanisms of beaches and natural island migration mechanisms of barrier islands.
The five-node resource nexus at sea
Published in Raimund Bleischwitz, Holger Hoff, Catalina Spataru, Ester van der Voet, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Routledge Handbook of the Resource Nexus, 2017
Beaches and barrier islands provide other ecosystem services. Though beaches are formed by physical oceanographic processes involving sediment transport and sand deposition, biota that colonize barrier islands stabilize the land forms. The presence of barrier islands buffers land from the daily erosive power of tides and waves, and are even more important in natural hazard mitigation in that they buffer land and infrastructure from cyclones and hurricanes as well as tsunamis. Gradual loss of beaches is occurring in many places due to environmental degradation and interference with coastal processes (as happens the world over with coastal constructions that interfere with currents, violation of setbacks on shorelines that attenuates beach erosion, and alterations to river channels and outlets to improve navigation). Recent attempts to model the effects of barrier beach loss in terms of compromises to infrastructure and property damage (see Ulm et al., 2016, for example) shows that the benefits provided by barrier beaches far outweigh the costs of effective management that preserves barrier beach integrity.
Coastal engineering and management
Published in David R. Green, Jeffrey L. Payne, Marine and Coastal Resource Management, 2017
Barrier islands are long, narrow, offshore deposits of sediment that run parallel to the coastline and are separated from the mainland by a shallow sound, bay, or lagoon. Barrier islands commonly have sandy beaches and dunes and maybe backed by saltmarshes in their sheltered lee. They are common along the East Coast of the United States and the Gulf of Mexico where they often occur in chains separated by narrow tidal inlets. Some barrier islands may be undeveloped (e.g. the Eastern Shore of Virginia) whilst others may be heavily developed (e.g. Long Beach Island, New York). Barrier island systems are most common on wave-dominated coasts with a small tidal range (<4 m), a large sediment supply, a shallow nearshore gradient and a relatively stable sea level. Barrier islands can erode during storms but may recover afterwards given sufficient sediment supply. Like gravel barriers they may adjust to sea level rise by over-washing and moving landwards. However, under conditions of rapid sea level rise it is possible that barriers may drown and be overstepped.
Rock mound to reduce wave overwash and crest lowering of a sand barrier
Published in Coastal Engineering Journal, 2021
Tingting Zhu, Nobuhisa Kobayashi
Low-laying barrier islands and beaches, which are common along the U.S. East Coast, are vulnerable to wave overwash and breaching by storm surge and waves. Barrier island morphological changes induced by storms were observed in a number of studies (e.g. Claudino-Sales, Wang, and Horwitz 2010) and simulated numerically by various researchers (e.g. Smallegan and Irish 2017). This study explores the possible use of a rubble mound structure in reducing the migration and crest lowering of a sand barrier during a storm. Hurricane Katrina cut a 2-km wide channel through a segment of the undeveloped section of Dauphin Island, Alabama in 2005 (Froede 2008). A rubble mound structure was constructed across the channel to close the Katrina cut (Webb et al. 2011). The structure damage by storms was predicted by Gonzalez et al. (2020) but the structure and sediment interactions were not analyzed. Sand transport in the vicinity of the porous structure is not well understood at present. On the other hand, a buried rock seawall reduced damage to the area landward of the seawall at Bay Head, New Jersey during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 (Irish et al. 2013). Kobayashi and Kim (2017) conducted a laboratory experiment to examine the effectiveness of a rock (stone) seawall in reducing wave overtopping and overwash of a sand beach. Their experiment is extended in this study to a sand barrier and wave transmission to a bay.
Indigenous mobility traditions, colonialism, and the anthropocene
Published in Mobilities, 2019
Kyle Whyte, Jared L Talley, Julia D. Gibson
Loss of wetlands and barrier islands destroyed natural protection against extreme weather events. In the case of the Isle de Jean Charles, for example, it is now the main storm buffer for other communities in Louisiana to its north. The island experiences flooding from hurricanes, which was previously unknown. Julie Maldonado et al. have demonstrated that the '[t]rees, medicinal plants, gardens and trapping grounds are gone'. There are ongoing health problems due to industrial contamination and the continuing development of ‘toxic industries, chemicals from dispersants, oil spills, including the 2010 BP oil disaster, and post-storm debris contaminating the air, soil and water’ (Maldonado et al. 2013, 606). Importantly, leadership from the aforementioned Tribal councils has stated that it is not an accident that climate-related changes are affecting their members on the island and across the coast.