Plum Island; 4,000 Years on a Barrier Beach


Book Description

On March 10, 2013, 6 houses were lost, 7 condemned and 24 were declared to be in imminent danger on Plum Island in northern Massachusetts. But it was only the latest skirmish in an ongoing battle between man and nature on this fragile barrier beach. Plum Island takes readers to the core of the earth to see how Plum Island's sands were first formed in the metamorphic forge of the earth's interior. It will then follow these minerals as they erode off the sides of New Hampshire's Ice Age Mountains and then wash down the proto Merrimack River to form Plum Island. It will chronicle the lives of the Wooly Mammoth, Paleo-Indians, fishermen, farmers, sand miners and rum runners who made a good but hard living on this rugged island in the past and the homeowners, lawyers and scientists who are locked in present battles about its future. In the end, Plum Island puts a human face on the larger story of how coastal communities must inevitably come to grips with the impact of Sea level rise on our ever-warming planet.




Geology of Holocene Barrier Island Systems


Book Description

Barrier islands represent a complex coastal system that includes a number of different sedimentary depositional environments; nearshore zone, beach, dunes, washover fans, marshes, tidal flats, estuaries, lagoons, and tidal inlets. The morphodynamics of these fragile coastal systems provide a further complication to this coastal type. Although barrier islands comprise only 15% of the world's coastline, they have received a far greater proportion of attention from the scientific and engineering community, and more recently, from coastal managers and environmentalists. Modern barrier islands are arguably the most expensive and most vulnerable of all coastal environments. Pressure from developers for residential, industrial, and recreational development has caused most of our barriers to become significantly impacted by human activity, especially over the past few decades. These pres sures have led to extensive preservation of natural barriers through efforts from all levels of government and also by private organizations. Governments have also formed coastal management programs that help to control any future de velopment with the intent being to keep human activity compatible with barrier island morphodynamics. In order to devise appropriate coastal zone management programs, it is necessary to have a comprehensive understanding of the morpho dynamics of barrier island systems. This volume provides comprehensive details on barrier island morphology, sediment distribution, and the process-response mechanisms that cause changes to both. These are the important aspects of barrier systems that can provide important input into the development and implementation of coastal management programs.




Swimming to the Top of the Tide


Book Description

Four seasons of immersion in New England’s Great Marsh “Like Wendell Berry and Rachel Carson, Hanlon is a true poet-ecologist, sharing in exquisitely resonant prose her patient observations of nature’s most intimate details. As she and her husband, through summer and snow, swim their local creeks and estuaries, we marvel at the timeless yet fragile terrain of both marshlands and marriage. This is the book to awaken all of us, right now, to how our coastline is changing and what it means for our future.” —Julia Glass, author of Three Junes and A House Among the Trees The Great Marsh is the largest continuous stretch of salt marsh in New England, extending from Cape Ann to New Hampshire. Patricia Hanlon and her husband built their home and raised their children alongside it. But it is not until the children are grown that they begin to swim the tidal estuary daily. Immersing herself, she experiences, with all her senses in all seasons, the vigor of a place where the two ecosystems of fresh and salt water mix, merge, and create new life. In Swimming to the Top of the Tide, Hanlon lyrically charts her explorations, at once intimate and scientific. Noting the disruptions caused by human intervention, she bears witness to the vitality of the watersheds, their essential role in the natural world, and the responsibility of those who love them to contribute to their sustainability. Patricia Hanlon is a visual artist who paints the beautiful ecosystem of New England’s Great Marsh and is involved in the watershed organizations of Greater Boston. Swimming to the Top of the Tide is her first book.




Coastal Risk: Shores and Deltas in Peril


Book Description

The interaction between land and sea is controlled by a number of processes that are in general driven by the equilibrium between environmental forcing components (e.g. hydrodynamic - waves, currents, surges), atmospheric (e.g. winds) and terrestrial (e.g. catchment land cover) and sediment dynamics. In the context of the Anthropocene epoch, the equilibrium in many coastal regions is now often altered by the influence of human activities. Successive human activities globally influence (indirectly) these forcing components, helping magnify the negative impact of extreme meteorological events and sea level rise. Directly, human activity can also influence a number of processes at a local scale within and between the catchment, the sea and the coast. For example, misplaced engineered infrastructure inside these naturally dynamic environments can accentuate disequilibrium, destabilizing shores and deltas. Development in catchments can promote rapid runoff, inducing sometimes-dramatic effects on downstream urbanized areas, the socio-economy as well as on coastal resources and ecosystems. This Research Topic aims to assemble research and review papers that focus on the dynamics of shores and deltas in peril under present conditions as well as in the future context of sea-level rise, climate change and adaptation strategies under various scenarios.




Sedimentary Coastal Zones from High to Low Latitudes


Book Description

We live in a world where the loss of sea ice and thawing of coastal grounds in the north, and renewed marine transgression and an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events globally, are becoming commonplace. This volume presents a timely examination of coasts, the geological environment at particular risk, as global warming brings on this new reality. In 23 papers, low lying, mainly siliciclastic coasts are reviewed, described and analysed, under a variety of climates in quasi-stable tectonic settings along passive, trailing-continental edges from Polar Regions to the Tropics. Examples include coast of the Arctic seas, temperate to tropical eastern shores of the Americas, western Portugal, Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, South Africa and Australia. The entire coastal zone (landscape) is considered ranging from geophysical processes and products to biological entities including the adaption of Native People in various climatic zones. Knowledge of the state of the coasts now, and how the coastal plain has evolved since Late Pleistocene, is crucial for any realistic planning for the future.
















At the Glacier’s Edge


Book Description

Vast salt marshes, ancient grasslands, lush forests, pristine beaches and dunes, and copious inland waters, all surrounded by a teeming sea. These are probably not the first things you imagine when you think of Long Island, but just beyond its highways and housing developments lies a stunning landscape full of diverse plant and animal life. Combining science writing, environmental history, and first-hand accounts from a longtime resident, At the Glacier’s Edge offers a unique narrative natural history of Long Island. Betsy McCully tells the story of how the island was formed at the end of the last ice age, how its habitats evolved, and how humans in the last few hundred years have radically altered and degraded its landscape. Yet as she personally recounts the habitat losses and species declines she has witnessed over the past few decades, she describes the vital efforts that environmental activists are making to restore and reclaim this land—from replanting salt marshes, to preserving remaining grasslands and forests, to cleaning up the waters. At the Glacier’s Edge provides an in-depth look at the flora, fauna and geology that make Long Island so special.