Inform

The health, beauty and ecosystem of our beaches is under threat

The driving cause for most of these problems is overdevelopment and poor coastal management. If no buildings crowded the shoreline, there would be no shoreline armoring, beach nourishment, threats to the beach fauna and flora or shoreline erosion problems.

Coastal Care Introduction

“Beach sand: so common, so complex, so perfect for sandcastles; and now it is a precious and vanishing resource.”

—Orrin H. Pilkey

Beaches are the most visited natural attraction on the planet. The coast attracts millions of vacationing people each year. People love the sand, the surf, the sea breeze, and the vacation ambiance so much that many come to the beach to stay. There is a magical feeling living near the ocean, but human migration towards the coast comes with a high environmental price tag.

A majority of the world’s population lives within 50 km of the coast and the projections are 75% by the year 2025. This strip of land represents only 3% of the total land mass of the planet. In this context, it is easier to understand the environmental impact. Over 70% of the earth is covered by water and with so many people living on the coast, we are polluting a major source of food, the oceans.

A beautiful undeveloped beach in Indonesia.

A beautiful undeveloped beach in Indonesia.

The loss of life and economic impacts of major storms – cyclones, typhoons, and hurricanes – and tsunamis would be reduced drastically if beaches were not developed. Unfortunately, recent examples of the problem are numerous: 1999 Indian cyclone Orissa (over 10,000 dead and $5 billion in damage), 2004 Indian Ocean tsumani (over 250,000 dead), 2005 Hurricane Katrina (over 1,800 killed and $80 billion in damage), and 2008 Hurricane Ike (over 30 killed and $30 billion in damage).

Today, the health, beauty, and ecosystem function of the world’s beaches are under threat and the driving causes for most of these problems are over-development and poor coastal management. If no buildings crowded the shoreline there would be no shoreline armoring, beach nourishment, threats to the beach fauna and flora or shoreline erosion problems.

It is important to distinguish between erosion and erosion problems. Erosion refers to the landward retreat of the shoreline. Most of the world’s shorelines are eroding, a very few are building out (accreting). There is no erosion problem, however, until someone builds something next to a shoreline. All over the world in remote areas, shorelines are slowly retreating and no one cares. In a global sense, our continents are slowly shrinking, and in a very real sense, erosion problems are man made. On a high-rise, condo-lined shoreline like those in Spain and the Florida coast, erosion is a huge problem and will only worsen in the future as sea level rise accelerates. Sea level rise will accelerate erosion of the shoreline and have a dramatic impact on our infrastructures, our economies, and our way of life.

Sea level rise is one of the most important causes of global shoreline erosion. If the coastline is developed, shoreline armoring is often used in an effort to save the buildings from the eroding shoreline. Once this begins, the beaches will degrade and eventually be lost. In the long-term, however, these armoring efforts are in vain. The ocean will continue to rise as the rate of sea level rise is expected to increase as the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets continue to degrade. The situation is made worse now because beach houses and condominiums are being built closer to the ocean than they were 25 years ago. Many of us are familiar with images of large beach houses about to fall victim to the oceans simply from daily erosion accelerated by the ever rising sea.

The work of the Santa Aguila Foundation will emphasize the impacts of sand mining and shoreline armoring: the first because the effects of sand mining have been largely ignored on a global scale and the latter due to its overwhelming negative impacts on the world’s beaches.


Surfing in / Inform

Plastic Found in Nine Percent of North Pacific Garbage Patch Fishes

plastic-pollution-beach
News, Pollution
Jul
1

The first scientific results from the 2009 SEAPLEX voyage, offer a stark view of human pollution and its infiltration. It is estimated that fish in the intermediate ocean depths of the North Pacific, ingest plastic at a rate of roughly 12,000 to 24,000 tons per year…

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Our Expanding Oceans, and Global Climate Change: A Primer

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Our Expanding Oceans exhibit is based on a new book, “Global Climate Change: A Primer,” written by renowned climate scientist Orrin Pilkey and son Keith Pilkey. To visually emphasize the effects of climate change, the book is illustrated with Mary Edna Fraser’s striking batik paintings. The exhibit featuring over 50 batiks on silk, opened at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

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Testing The Waters and The US Beaches

beach-pollution
News, Pollution
Jun
30

NRDC’s annual survey of water quality and public notification at U.S. beaches finds that the number of beach closings and advisories in 2010 reached 24,091, the second-highest level since NRDC began tracking these events 21 years ago.

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Sand Dredging Operations Of “Unprecedented Scale,” Cambodia

sand-dredging-cambodia
News, Sand Mining
Jun
29

Sand dredgers have resumed operations of “unprecedented scale” in Koh Kong province’s salt-water estuaries since May, after a drop-off in dredging activities as a result of a 2009 sand-export ban.

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Average U.S. temperature increases by 0.5 degrees F

noaa-2011-temp

The climate of the 2000s is about 1.5 degree F warmer than the 1970s.

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Newspaper Archives Help to Understand Coastal Flooding

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A unique study using over 70 years of information from local newspapers has helped to examine the incidence and location of coastal floods in the Solent region of southern England.

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Islands Going Under, The Carteret Islands

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The Carteret Islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea are drowning… What should have been an idyllic South Pacific paradise, is rapidly turning into a climate change disaster site.

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Study details significant sea level rise

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Since the late 19th century, sea level has risen by more than 2 millimeters per year on average, the steepest rate for more than 2,100 years. The new study does not predict the future, yet it does show “there is a very close link between sea level and temperature. So for the 21st century when temperatures will rise, so will sea level.”

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Ongoing Sand Mining Mafia, Konkan coast, India

illegal-sand-mining-konkan-coast
News, Sand Mining
Jun
20

Sand mining had come to a near standstill last year after the Bombay High Court banned it, however Maharashtra’s creeks and the Konkan coast and beaches do remain prey to the sand mafia.

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Recent / Inform

Sand Drift in Norway Caused by Sea-Level Changes and Human Activity

dune-south-west-norway

April 7th, 2011

The sand along the south-western coastal rim of Norway has drifted for more than 9000 calendar years. This was triggered by sea-level changes and human activities, new research has found.

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UN climate talks begin amid Kyoto Protocol feud

sea-level-rise

April 5th, 2011

The debate over who should commit to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, has increased the likelihood of the Kyoto Protocol commitments expiring with only a framework of non-legally binding pledges from most developed and developing countries to fill the void.

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Ridge to Reef in Belize

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April 4th, 2011

This video contextualizes how land activities, particularly agriculture, needs to be properly regulated and carried out to minimize their impact on coral reef.

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Winthrop Beach’s Crumbling Sea wall and Acccelerated Erosion

wchair-sun

April 4th, 2011

Once a playground for the elite, who traveled from as far as Chicago to spend time at the hotels that lined the Winthrop beach in the early 20th century, the beach has been eroding over the past century. The process was accelerated by the installation of walls that were put up, which removed the source of natural sediment that once helped create the beach. Visitors can find evidence of what waves can do to manmade structures.

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Flotsam From Japan’s Tsunami to be Carried by Currents and Pushed Onshore

float-ebb

April 1st, 2011

The biggest haul of floating debris will likely be carried by currents off of Japan toward Washington, Oregon and California, then turning toward Hawaii and back again toward Asia, unless wind and ocean currents eventually push some of the massive debris from Japan’s tsunami onto the shores of the U.S. West Coast, said Curt Ebbesmeyer, a Seattle oceanographer who has spent decades tracking flotsam.

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Earth’s Gravity Revealed in Unprecedented Detail

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March 31st, 2011

After just two years in orbit, ESA’s GOCE satellite, a European spacecraft that skims the upper reaches of the atmosphere, has gathered enough data to map Earth’s gravity with unrivalled precision, from deep ocean trenches to majestic mountain ranges. The data will be crucial for understanding sea level changes, shifts in ice flows and how ocean currents, which are driven by gravity, respond as the planet warms over the next few decades.

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Corals Moving North to Escape Warming

ebon-atoll

March 29th, 2011

Corals are dying in tropical areas, but now it appears they are expanding their range poleward. However, even if range expansion of corals does occur, the amount of dying corals in tropical areas may be much greater than the new settlements in the temperate regions.

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Beach Renourishment Projects in Doubt

sand-key-eroded-beach

March 28th, 2011

On a narrow stretch of Sand Key, Fl., the beach has eroded from months of rushing waves. Tides eat away at the coast, sweeping sand back into the gulf. Unstopped by the shore, water rolls to the seawall, 20 feet from condominiums. Bordered by 825 miles of sandy shoreline, Florida tops the nation in federally funded beach renourishment.

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Papua New Guinea Coastal Mine Waste Dumping: The Ramu Mine Case

ramu-mine

March 27th, 2011

The dumping of mine tailings waste into the shallow coastal marine environment is currently before the National Court of Papua New Guinea, in a case that will have far-reaching implications. At stake are the pristine waters of the Bismarck Sea and the livelihoods of thousands of coastal inhabitants on one hand, and the future of mine waste disposal on the other.

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5th International Marine Debris Conference, in Hawaii

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March 26th, 2011

The conference brought together over 440 participants from 35 countries to discuss the most pressing issues surrounding plastic pollution in our oceans and waterways.

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Coastal Care junior
The World's Beaches
Sand Mining
One Percent