Ever wonder, as you stroll along a beach, why the beach is there? Why is it shaped the way it is? What made the sand? Why are there rocks or no rocks? Why do those waves keep rolling in and rolling back out? Why does that delightful breeze shift? How can I keep my umbrella anchored in the sand? This book may not answer that last question, but it will answer all the others, and many more. 'This book by an internationally well-known coastal expert translates science into comprehensible popular language. Readers will especially appreciate the profusion and variety of illustrations from the entire globe.' -- Dr. Ervin G. Otvos, Head Geology Section, Gulf Coast Research Laboratory and Emeritus Professor, Department of Coastal Sciences, University of Southern Mississippi This book explains how beaches originate, what they are made of, and how wind, waves, tides, storms, sea level change, and human development affect them. Includes a section on the most beautiful and interesting beaches in the world--a good many of them in Florida.

Around the world, when people think of vacation it's the beach they want--even when long distances must be traversed, the seashore is the place to escape the rigors of modern life. How did this come to be, and what does our ongoing love affair with the beach mean? How do shore vacations differ from traditional tourism, and what does this tell us about our fears and dreams? In At the Beach, Jean-Didier Urbain offers witty and insightful answers to these questions. Urbain traces the transformation of the beach from a place of mythological threats and a demanding workplace fraught with danger to a destination for medical treatment and the pursuit of pleasure. He looks to the emergence of the modern vacation in the nineteenth century, examines representations of beachgoing in literature and the arts, and shows the transgressive side of beach culture--from nudism to hedonism to various "scandals" about costume, behavior, and sexuality that make the beach the site of social spectacle as well as leisure. Urbain's ultimate focus is the paradoxical enterprise of the residential seaside vacationer, who travels in order to stay in one place and who leaves the everyday world behind to reconstruct an idealized version of it at the shore. He argues that unlike tourists, who move from place to place, beach vacationers are not seeking to explore nature, to discover other cultures, or even to "get away from it all"; rather, they are attempting to re-create their own identities through a simplified community they can no longer find elsewhere. Blending history with social observation, Urbain presents an original, incisive, and entertaining account of this enduring ritual of escape and recreation.

Amid the chaos of questions and conflicting information, Aaron Wildavsky arrives with just what the beleaguered citizen needs: a clear, fair, and factual look at how the rival claims of environmentalists and industrialists work, what they mean, and where to start sorting them out.

Sandy beaches represent some of the most dynamic environments on Earth and examining their morphodynamic behaviour over different temporal and spatial scales is challenging, relying on multidisciplinary approaches and techniques. Sandy Beach Morphodynamics brings together the latest research on beach systems and their morphodynamics and the ways in which they are studied in 29 chapters that review the full spectrum of beach morphodynamics. The chapters are written by leading experts in the field and provide introductory level understanding of physical processes and resulting landforms, along with more advanced discussions.

Effective coastal engineering is expensive, but it is not as costly as neglect or ineffective intervention. Good practice needs to be based on sound principles, but theoretical work and modelling also need to be well grounded in practice, which is continuously evolving. Conceptual and detailed design has been advanced by new industry publications since the publication of the second edition. This third edition provides a number of updates: the sections on wave overtopping have been updated to reflect changes brought in with the recently issued EurOtop II manual; a detailed worked example is given of the calculation of extreme wave conditions for design; additional examples have been included on the reliability of structures and probabilistic design; the method for tidal analysis and calculation of amplitudes and phases of harmonic constituents from water level time series has been introduced in a new appendix together with a worked example of harmonic analysis; and a real-life example is included of a design adapting to climate change. This book is especially useful as an information source for undergraduates and engineering MSc students specializing in coastal engineering and management. Readers require a good grounding in basic fluid mechanics or engineering hydraulics, and some familiarity with elementary statistical concepts.

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