61% Of Gulf Coast Shorelines Eroding - USGS

[hatrack]

RESTON, Virginia, June 14, 2004 (ENS) - "A new assessment of coastal change on the Gulf of Mexico released by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) shows that 61 percent of the Gulf Coast shoreline is eroding.

The assessment shows that coastal Louisiana is most vulnerable to shoreline erosion along with barriers islands in Texas. In Florida, erosion is concentrated around tidal inlets.

The most stable Gulf beaches include those on the west coast of Florida. In some areas in Texas, shorelines have actually accreted, or gained sand.

"At the beginning of hurricane season, coastal residents recognize how important their beaches are, not just for enjoyment but also for protection from mighty coastal storms," said Robert Morton, a USGS coastal geologist and the assessment's lead author. "Beach erosion is a chronic problem along most open-ocean shores of the United States." The completion of the Gulf of Mexico portion of the study marks the first in a series that will address the Atlantic Coast, Pacific Coast, and parts of Hawaii and Alaska. It was designed to help coastal managers at all levels of government make more informed decisions."

EDIT

http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=32603

[Fenris]

1. Yeah, I've seen some accretion around Sabine Pass

Over where the Sabine meets the Gulf. Lot more sand than there used to be.

[gulfcoastliberal]

2. My mom lives on a Gulf barrier island

In NW Florida. They had to do a $25 million dredging operation last year for the first time ever; after hurricane Opal devastated the dune system on the island, successive storms have shifted the gulf seafloor which has also increased erosion. They added 200 feet of sand to the beach over 6 or 7 miles or so. The beach badly needed it - it was eroding so quickly that in many places buildings were nearly in the water that used to be hundreds of feet from the shoreline.

[Ediacara]

3. I have a sedimentary petrology professor

He has an idea, which I think 99% of geologists would agree with. People who chose to live on barrier islands should be legally barred from insuring their homes. Currently people insure their barrier island homes, home gets destroyed by hurricane, and WE pay to rebuild again and again and again. It's like trying to build a home on the sun!

Plus, barrier islands would be really beautiful without all the damn houses....

[2Design]

5. yes I would like to see less homes built right on the shore and

more public access to all beach front areas. They are way to closed off from the general public

[blindpig]

6. it's insanity

The building boom in coastal SC is the obscene result of this scam.
When did the government start this idiocy, don't think it was that long ago. Some of the most beautiful habitat around has become an obscene mass of cheezy commerce, gd golfcourses, gated communities with trailer parks provided for the help. With the perverse help of the state there will soon not be a stretch of live oak galleried hwy left in the Low Country.
A pox on real estate developers and their enablers!

[phantom power]

7. it surprises me that insurance companies will

provide such people with policies. Are they required to provide insurance by law?

Another similar rule: If I was an insurance company, I wouldn't insure houses built in flood-plains.

[DrWeird]

9. Barrier islands and flood plains.

And on top of dirt cliffs overlooking the Pacific ocean.

[Arwennick]

4. erosion

I was a land surveyor for 25 years on the Gulf coast.I had access to maps from the 1830's and can attest to the loss of at least 1&1/2 miles of shoreline since then.Its natures way.My Aunt has a lot on the Gulf in Fort Morgan,Al.One year it lost 22 feet another year it gained 12.Hurricanes are the biggest factor in the problem.

[Massacure]

8. Erosion is completely natural, there is nothing you can do about it

[NNadir]

10. Erosion used to be the process by which beaches were formed.

There is very little that is "natural" about the disappearance of beaches in the United States. Beaches, deltas, estuaries and barrier islands are disappearing because of human practices, and is not limited to the effects of global climate change, though of course climate change is changing the nature of shorelines world wide.

The building of dams is heavily involved in this process. Dams arrest the natural progress of land based silt of which most beachs and barrier islands are comprised. Unfortunately the destruction wrought by dams is not merely aesthetic. There is a profound effect on the salt balance on a continental scale. Salts that were formerly washed to the sea are now redistributed on land as a result of dam based irrigation processes. The long term effect of this ecological experiment will be desertification of large swathes of land. The disappearance of beaches and wetlands is merely the beginning. It is going to get much, much worse. Dam building is certainly a Faustian undertaking.