Coastal Dunes: Human Impact and Need for Restoration

Abstract

A large proportion of the world population lives at or near the coast, which results in high impact and degradation of coastal ecosystems, such as the beach and coastal dunes. These ecosystems are particularly threatened by the impact of human activities because of the increasing demand of sun and sand tourism throughout the world. Because of this increase, conservation activities and restoration efforts will become more and more relevant. In spite of the urgent need for restoration, there are very few books focused on coastal dune restoration that cover a wide variety of coastal dune systems from different latitudes, including tropical and temperate dunes. In this book we have put together a set of restoration activities performed in different parts of the world. The goal was to gather information on state-of-the-art studies on the restoration of coastal sand dunes, covering a wide variety of landforms and approaches that can be of assistance in future coastal dune restoration projects. Different coastal land forms are included in this set of studies, such as foredunes, slacks/swales/deflation basins and plains, blowouts, parabolics, and transgressive dunefields. We follow a broad definition of “restoration,” which includes any effort to restore the original functionality of the previously existing ecosystem, but also efforts at rehabilitation, reclamation, and even designing ecosystems in drastically altered sites (such as after mining activities). The diverse array of contributions will hopefully stimulate further research that will lead to a better understanding of the actions required for improving restoration strategies.