Coastal dunes provide a diverse set of ecosystem services including coastal protection against destructive surge and waves during storm events. Dunes are constantly evolving through various stages of response to storm events and post-storm recovery at rates that vary due to a range of drivers including pre-existing morphology, environmental forcing...
The formation of beach scarps is a challenging morphodynamic phenomenon that the coastal community has yet to capture in coastal change models. Understanding scarp formation is crucial to accurately predicting coastal erosion and vulnerability during extreme events, as models without parameters for scarp formation and development severely underpredict total erosion...
Coastal sand dunes and beaches offer a variety of ecosystem services such as coastal protection, sand stabilization, species conservation, and recreation. However, the management and balance of ecosystem services offered by dunes and beaches is challenging when ecosystem services interact across the landscape. Management focusing only on one ecosystem service...
Biological invasions provide a unique opportunity to study the mechanisms that regulate community composition and ecosystem function. Invasive species that are also ecosystem engineers can substantially alter physical features in an environment, and this can lead to cascading effects on the biological community. Aquatic-terrestrial interface ecosystems are excellent systems to...
The subaerial beach, composed of sand dunes and the foreshore, provides a natural buffer zone between vulnerable land and the dissipation of storm wave energy due to wave breaking. The natural beauty of this region is attractive to people, and as a result, significant investment has been placed in this...
Coastal foredunes protect lives, infrastructure, and ecosystems during severe winter storms. In the U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW), coastal foredune geomorphology is determined by both physical and ecological mechanisms. Before the 1900's, the native plant Elymus mollis was the dominant dune grass and dune morphology was largely determined by sediment supply...
This study is concerned with the post-Ice Age (Holocene) dunes in the coast segment between Coos Bay on the south and Sea Lion Point on the north. This is the longest strip of dunes along the Oregon coast and extends for a distance of about 55 miles. It is divided...
Sand dunes are found along the coasts of most of the large land
masses of the world. Because of their proximity to man and his
activities, the maritime sand dunes of Europe, particularly Germany,
France, Holland and Scandinavia, have the longest history of stabilization
activities and botanical investigation. There are...
A study of Ammophila, a,renaria (L. ) Link, (European beachgrass) plantations was carried out on sand dunes along the Oregon coast to observe the vegetation changes which occur over a period of years. Control of moving sand has been important on a world-wide basis for many years. In Oregon this...