The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast: Evolutionary History, Present Crisis, and Vision for the Future (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast: Evolutionary History, Present Crisis, and Vision for the Future Douglas W. Gamble The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast: Evolutionary History, Present Crisis, and Vision for the Future Stanley R. Riggs, Dorothea V. Ames, Stephen J. Culver, and David J. Mallinson. 2011. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC. 160 pp. Maps, diagrams, photos, notes, bibliography, and index. $35.00 cloth. (ISBN 1978-0-8078-3486-2) The southeastern United States has seen unprecedented growth of coastal communities over the past 20 years. All along the coast, what was marsh, waterway, and estuary is now new village, town, and city. According to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau, in North Carolina the coastal counties of New Hanover and Brunswick have grown from populations of 103,471 and 35,777 in 1980, to populations of 192,538 and 103,160 in 2008. Further, Frankenberg (1995) found the assessed value of Outer Banks real estate increased from $6 million to $3.5 billion from 1950 to 1993. With this growth along the coast of North Carolina, the coastal zone, which has long been a dynamic physical system, is now under the influence of planning and development efforts that attempt to stabilize this dynamic system, allowing for human occupation. [End Page 242] Further, as we better understand global climate change, it is more apparent that these physical systems may become more dynamic, and one of the greatest vulnerabilities to climate change is coastal communities that are unprepared for sea level rise. Stanley Riggs and his colleagues at East Carolina University have made careers out of studying the geology, hazards, and development of coastal North Carolina. Based upon this research is the book The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast: Evolutionary History, Present Crisis, and Vision for the Future. The purpose of the book is to describe, based on scientific principles and current research, the history and dynamics of North Carolina’s coastal system, define the area’s conflicts and reasons for them, and suggest a vision for the future of coastal development. The book is comprised of ten chapters, notes, a bibliography, and a subject index. The first chapter addresses the question, why is there a coastal conflict? The second chapter then offers a general description of North Carolina’s coastal system. Chapters three and four offer a description of the two major processes that have shaped the coast into its modern form, sea-level rise and storms. The fifth and sixth chapter describe the modern shoreline system and its evolution. Beginning with chapter seven, the authors shift to a description and analysis of how humans have modified the modern shoreline system. Chapter seven discusses risk along the coast, chapter eight describes specific human modification, and chapter nine offers potential adaptation scenarios for coastal communities. The final chapter, ten, offers the authors concluding remarks. Throughout the text clear photos and figures are well presented and integrated into chapter discussions. The book’s photos and figures (mostly in color) are particularly impressive in that they are not stock illustrations that have been dug up by the publisher. Rather, the photos and figures represent the photos and figures the authors have developed over the years as part of their research and offer excellent insight into the concepts discussed in the text. Having followed this topic for over a decade and read much of the authors’ previous work, it is excellent to be able to pick up one volume that provides all of these figures in a clear and easy to access format. The greatest strength of this book is that the authors do not treat the issue of coastal change as a ‘brand new concept’ driven by sea level rise from future climate change. The authors clearly outline how the North Carolina coast has been a dynamic system throughout history (preand post-human occupation). Through the extensive description of the history of the dynamic nature of the coast, the reader is forced to realize that sea level rise due to global climate change is the most recent layer of coastal change that must be addressed by North Carolina’s coastal community. Consequently, the authors...