Waves and tides, wind and storms, sea-level rise and shore erosion: these are the forces that shape our beaches, and beach lovers of all stripes can benefit from learning more about how these coastal processes work. With animation and clarity, The Beach Book tells sunbathers why beaches widen and narrow, and helps boaters and anglers understand why tidal inlets migrate. It gives home buyers insight into erosion rates and provides natural-resource managers and interested citizens with rich information on beach nourishment and coastal-zone development. And for all of us concerned about the long-term health of our beaches, it outlines the latest scientific information on sea-level rise and introduces ways to combat not only the erosion of beaches but also the decline of other coastal habitats. The more we learn about coastline formation and maintenance, Carl Hobbs argues, the better we can appreciate and cultivate our shores. Informed by the latest research and infused with a passion for its subject, The Beach Book provides a wide-ranging introduction to the shore, and all of us who love the beach and its associated environments will find it timely and useful.

"Finch is today’s best, most perceptive Cape Cod writer in a line extending all the way back to Henry David Thoreau." —Christian Science Monitor Weaving together Robert Finch’s collected writings from over fifty years and a thousand miles of walking along Cape Cod’s Atlantic coast, The Outer Beach is a poignant, candid chronicle of an iconic American landscape anyone with an appreciation for nature will cherish.

“A first-rate storyteller who creates believable, sympathetic characters who seem as familiar as your neighbors,” (The Boston Globe), Barbara Delinsky presents a captivating new novel about a woman whose unexpected reunion with her estranged family forces her to confront a devastating past in A Week at the Shore. One phone call is all it takes to lure Mallory Aldiss back to her family’s Rhode Island beach home. It's been twenty years since she's been gone—running from the scandal that destroyed her parents' marriage, drove her and her two sisters apart, and crushed her relationship with the love of her life, Jack Sabathian. Twenty years during which she lived in New York, building her career as a photographer and raising her now teenage daughter Joy. But that phone call makes it clear that something has brought the past forward again—something involving Mallory’s father. Compelled by concern for her family and by Joy’s wish to visit her mother’s childhood home, Mallory returns to Bay Bluff, where conflicting loyalties will be faced and painful truths revealed. In just seven watershed days at the Rhode Island shore, she will test the bonds of friendship and family—and discover the role that love plays in defining their lives.

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.

This book is written for engineers, students of coastal processes and laypersons interested in beach nourishment, which consists of the placement of large quantities of good quality sediment on the beach to advance the shoreline seaward. The improvement of project performance through proper design and the predictability of performance are emphasized. The overall longevity of a project is addressed as are local erosional areas. The roles which wave height, project length and sediment quality play in project performance are addressed quantitatively. The results are illustrated through reference to a number of monitored nourishment projects. Biological and economic aspects of beach nourishment are addressed.

Our beaches are eroding, sinking, washing out right under our houses, hotels, bridges; vacation dreamlands become nightmare scenes of futile revetments, fills, groins, what have you—all thrown up in a frantic defense against the natural system. The romantic desire to live on the seashore is in doomed conflict with an age-old pattern of beach migration. Yet it need not be so. Conservationist Wallace Kaufman teams up with marine geologist Orrin H. Pilkey Jr., in an evaluation of America's beaches from coast to coast, giving sound advice on how to judge a safe beach development from a dangerous one and how to live at the shore sensibly and safely.

For generations, people have felt deeply connected to the New Jersey Shore. With 332 full-color photographs, intimate essays about each season by noted Shore writers and a prologue, this evocative new coffee-table book immerses the reader in this coast. From ocean to bay, from sand dunes to salt marsh, from boardwalks to amusements and arcades, fifty-four contributors to this pictorial hardcover capture the heart and soul of the shore. It is an appreciation and a tribute; an extraordinary connection to place that is both personal--and shared. Featuring work from more than four dozen talented photographers, this "handsome volume," (as described by "Publishers Weekly) celebrates the Jersey Shore in large format and is printed on 224-pages of rich, heavyweight matte stock. The quintessential Jersey Shore from Sandy Hook to Cape May is revealed. "Four Seasons at the Shore is a touchstone that anyone who has ever visited or lived here will want--no matter where they live now, or how long it has been since they've had Jersey Shore sand between their toes.

The coasts of today's American South feature luxury condominiums, resorts, and gated communities, yet just a century ago, a surprising amount of beachfront property in the Chesapeake, along the Carolina shores, and around the Gulf of Mexico was owned and populated by African Americans. Blending social and environmental history, Andrew W. Kahrl tells the story of African American–owned beaches in the twentieth century. By reconstructing African American life along the coast, Kahrl demonstrates just how important these properties were for African American communities and leisure, as well as for economic empowerment, especially during the era of the Jim Crow South. However, in the wake of the civil rights movement and amid the growing prosperity of the Sunbelt, many African Americans fell victim to effective campaigns to dispossess black landowners of their properties and beaches. Kahrl makes a signal contribution to our understanding of African American landowners and real-estate developers, as well as the development of coastal capitalism along the southern seaboard, tying the creation of overdeveloped, unsustainable coastlines to the unmaking of black communities and cultures along the shore. The result is a skillful appraisal of the ambiguous legacy of racial progress in the Sunbelt.

The Ecology of Sandy Shores provides the students and researchers with a one-volume resource for understanding the conservation and management of the sandy shore ecosystem. Covering all beach types, and addressing issues from the behavioral and physiological adaptations of the biota to exploring the effects of pollution and the impact of man's activities, this book should become the standard reference for those interested in Sandy Shore study, management and preservation. - More than 25% expanded from the previous edition - Three entirely new chapters: Energetics and Nutrient Cycling, Turtles and Terrestrial Vertebrates, and Benthic Macrofauna Populations - New sections on the interstitial environment, seagrasses, human impacts and coastal zone management - Examples drawn from virtually all parts of the world, considering all beach types from the most exposed to the most sheltered

For more than a century, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been building fortifications along the American coastline in an effort to protect our vulnerable shores. With the prospect of seaborne invasion becoming increasingly unlikely, the Corps has turned its attention to a more subtle but no less dangerous threat: the insidious effects of coastal erosion.In "The Corps and the Shore," Orrin H. Pilkey, the nation's most outspoken coastal geologist, and Katharine L. Dixon, an educator and activist for national coastal policy reform, provide a comprehensive examination of the impact of coastal processes on developed areas and the ways in which the Corps of Engineers has attempted to manage erosion along America's coastline.Through detailed case studies of large-scale projects in Texas, Maine, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and South Carolina, the authors demonstrate the shortcomings of the Corps's underlying assumptions and methodology. As they discuss the role of local citizens in the project process, they highlight the interaction between local Corps offices and community officials and residents. By focusing on different types of problems in various regions of the country, Pilkey and Dixon clearly show how the Corps has repeatedly failed to act in the best interest of those most affected by the projects. As well as criticizing Corps practices, the authors provide numerous suggestions for reforming the Corps and making it both more scientifically accountable and more accountable to the citizens it is intended to serve."The Corps and the Shore" is essential reading for coastal residents, environmentalists, planners, and coastal city officials as well as geologists, civil engineers, marine scientists, and anyone concerned with the impact of human society on our shorelines.