Major Natural System : Beach Dune

A1: A coastal landscape is the area where land meets the sea or ocean. There are a variety of different plants and animals that live in coastal landscapes. Many of them rely on the food deposited by the sea.

This leaves the sand dunes more susceptible to erosion causing blowouts and disrupting the succession of vegetation in the area. This has been a problem at Studland Bay in Dorset on the south coast of England. Persistent human leisure activities on the dunes has led to substantial erosion in some parts of these dunes which has meant that Management programs have had to been introduced by English Nature. Sand dunes help absorb the pounding of high waves and reduce overwash flooding in storms.

The environment around us in Southwest Florida is beautiful, but also delicate. From the tall cabbage palms to the shortest saw palmetto, the foliage that surrounds us represents life in Southwest Florida. The environment in Florida is extremely fragile and steps need to be taken in order to preserve its beauty. The first settlers in Florida sacrificed their living conditions to be surrounded by snakes, bobcats, and bears. From their sacrifice, Americans were able to settle one of the most beautiful places in the United States. Now, Florida has been bulldozed down and is filled with gated communities and retirement centers. The Florida landscape has taken many hits throughout the years, but it still manages to grow up through the concrete and show what Florida used to look like. The fragile environment in South West Florida needs to be protected for future generations to enjoy.

Long Island is famous for its sandy ocean beaches. Between the barrier beach and the main coast is the Great South Bay. The beaches and dunes have very different characteristics. The sandy beach is the junction of land and ocean. The sandy beach consists of two zones, the swash zone and the drift line. The swash zone is the area of wet sand, caused by the incoming wave. The drift line is formed by the dead seaweed and other aquatic plants. Behind the sandy beach is the primary dune. The primary dune's main function is to absorb the force of the ocean and protect the great south bay and the island's main coast. In some cases secondary dunes form. These dunes are behind the primary dune and are therefor protected from the ocean. This provides the stability necessary for plant growth. Many time a maritime forests will form on secondary dunes.

The name Lee Island Coast is in honor of Lee County, which consists of the barrier islands of Fort Myers, Sanibel and Captiva Islands, Fort Myers Beach, Cape Coral, Bonita Springs, and Estero. Off the mainland, there are also over 100 smaller coastal islands. These areas have some of the most beautiful beaches that are the most popular attractions for visitors to this region of Florida’s coastline. Lee Island Coast covers roughly 50 miles of beaches, renowned state parks of lush sub-tropical foliages, and wildlife preserves with exotic creatures, with each distinct area having its own unique characteristics, that highlights the wealth of natural resources of the region.

Barrier Island is a low edge of sand that is parallel to the mainland with a distance of 2 to 19 miles’ off the shoreline, 300 barrier islands border the shore of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to Padre Island, Texas. The barrier island defends the coast from the full power of storm waves. In the central of the barrier island and the mainland is a peaceful lagoon or a bay. Mainly most of these barrier island are 0.6-3 miles wide and amid from 9-18 miles long. The highest structures example of barrier island are sand dunes with the height of 16-33 feet; however, in some places the dunes can reach the height of 100 feet. Few barrier islands are initiated as spits that were then detached from the inland by upsurge corrosion, rising of sea level resulting

As the rocky intertidal shore is the fringe between the terrestrial zone and the marine zone, it is not uncommon to find that the elevation of the rocky shore increases as it moves inland. This is evident in Figure 1(A), as the 0m mark marks the portion of the sampling site that is in the water and just before the rocky shore and the 10m mark is the highest point of the sampling site and the closest mark to the terrestrial zone. Due to this change in elevation, three zones have been able to be identified in the intertidal zone and these help with distinguishing which animals and plants will be found along the rocky shore. The low intertidal zone and the high intertidal zone are the two zones that are the most extreme when it comes to physical factors. The low intertidal zone has to deal with constant wave action and the high intertidal zone has to deal with large expanses of exposure to air, which makes it less desirable to marine life that are unable to adapt to a more terrestrial life (Moreira, n.d.).

Reportedly the tallest single-structured sand dune in North America rises to 470 feet (140 m) high above small lakes. The dunes at Bruneau Dunes State Park are unique in the Western Hemisphere. Other dunes in the Americas form at the edge of a natural basin. The Bruneau dunes form near the center. The basin has acted as a natural trap for over 12,000 years. The dunes may have started with sands from the Bonneville Flood about 15,000 years ago. The prevailing winds blow from the southeast 28 percent of the time and from the northwest 32 percent of the time, keeping the dunes fairly stable. Unlike most dunes, these do not drift

The intertidal rocky shore of Caloundra Beach is inhabited by diverse range of biodiversity of animals and plants, many of which have developed high levels of adaptations throughout their existence. The very boundary of marine and terrestrial ecosystem, this environment is subjected to extremes of the physical environment such as temperature, desiccation, wave turbulence as well the ecological interactions that commonly occur in biotic communities (e.g. competition, predation). However Rocky intertidal shores are easily accessible by humans and provide an enjoyable opportunity for passive recreation and for science and environmental education as well.

A sand spit is an extended portion of land which is right ahead of a beach generally formed by the deposition of sediments brought by the river. As written by (Bhate, 1980) a stabilized spit is the flat sandy plain immediately behind the narrow beach but relatively at a higher level. The major stabilized spit seen was at Talashil 16°06’12”N, 73°27’29.6”E. This has formed by the sediment deposited by the Gad River over many years.

During the summer months, when the seas are calmer and the waves smaller, beaches tend to build up. This process is known as accretion (http://biology.usgs.gov/s+t/SNT/noframe/cr133.htm). If the amount of winter erosion exceeds summer accretion, there is overall erosion with the land behind the beach being eroded as the beach retreats inland. The rate of retreat is called the erosion rate. Erosion may be due to one or more factors: for example, a severe winter swell, a recent hurricane, the death of an adjacent coral reef or interference in the supply of sand. Conversely, if accretion exceeds erosion, the beach gets wider over time and accretionary features, such as cuspate forelands, tom bolos, spits and bars, may develop (see Figure 1).

According to Yonge (1949), “the zoning of both plants and animals within the narrow vertical limits of a rocky shore is one of the most striking features about shore life.” It is noticeable particularly where sessile organisms (such as barnacles) occur in abundance on the boundaries of their vertical distribution, as they form a conspicuous line (Boaden & Seed, 1985). The author has also been particularly impressed by clear zonation patterns of brown algae often to be found on rocky shores. Precise and universal demarcation of these zones is impossible (Brehaut, 1982), but a comprehension of the vertical zonation of rocky shores is clearly

Sand, rubble, and macroalgae dominate benthic cover at sites A and B at Black Point. Seasonal blooms of green macroalgae, Bryopsis pennata, which persisted in the water column and benthos at all sites, were occurring during our Black Point sampling event. Coral cover is highest along the outer perimeter of the reef flat (i.e., site C). Benthic cover at Wailupe is dominated by macroalgae with percent cover ranging from 30 - 50% on average (Amato, 2015). Sand and rubble constitute nearly 20 - 50% of the benthos at all sites. Corals are found predominantly offshore with cover estimated as 2 - 5% at site C while zoanthid cover peaks in the nearshore sites at 2 - 12% (Amato, 2015).

Coastal ecosystems are among the most productive on the planet, providing all of 70 percent of total global ecosystem services and housing 10 percent of the Earth’s total population (13 percent of its urban population) despite accounting for only 2 percent of the Earth’s land surface (Costanza 2011).

Long shore currents continuously transport sand south along the coast. Harsh winter weather pulls sand from dunes and upper beaches, depositing it onto offshore sand bars and reducing beach width, while gentler wave action during milder summer weather acts to restore the shoreline (NOAA, 2013.) The structure of barrier islands is determined by the movement of sand in the littoral zone, which is the land-facing side of the island. In August of the year 1933, a hurricane created an inlet south of Ocean City, Maryland. The inlet separated the island from Maryland (U.S. National Parks Service, 2012.) After the hurricane, a permanent system of artificial jetties was built for navigation purposes, and has drifted westward considerably from the original landmass; without the jettisons, it would have silted back because of longshore drift which is a geographical process that consists of the transportation of sediments, such as clay, silt, sand, and shingle along a coast at an angle to the shoreline, which depends on prevailing wind direction, amongst other factors, This process occurs in the littoral zone, and is on in or close to the surf zone. The artificial jettisons has created wider beaches and better fishing access, but also has caused erosion problems on Assateague Island. As an added note, Assateague island is well known for their white sand