. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. What's eating at North Carolina beaches? The word itself is a part of the problem. Erosion. Inland, it means gullied banks, silted streams and air- borne topsoil. Erosion, we've been taught, is something man provokes when he disturbs the earth, and something he can stop—with walls, plants or more prudent farming. But the sea erodes an ocean beach whether man is there or not, and geologists say that, while we might temporarily divert beach erosion from one place to another, there is nothing we can do to sto
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. What's eating at North Carolina beaches? The word itself is a part of the problem. Erosion. Inland, it means gullied banks, silted streams and air- borne topsoil. Erosion, we've been taught, is something man provokes when he disturbs the earth, and something he can stop—with walls, plants or more prudent farming. But the sea erodes an ocean beach whether man is there or not, and geologists say that, while we might temporarily divert beach erosion from one place to another, there is nothing we can do to stop it. As long as sea level continues to rise, our barrier island beaches will recede, and the islands themselves will "migrate" landward. Photo by Neil Caudle. "Things out here aren't like inland areas," says Spencer Rogers, Sea Grant's coastal engineering specialist. A few hundred feet outside his office at the N. C. Marine Resources Center at Ft. Fisher, the sea is marching steadily landward. "Geology is an active, real process out here on the beach," Rogers con- tinues. "You can leave your lot in Raleigh on the day you're born, come back to it in seventy years, and there will be practically no change in the shape of the lot. If you have a lot on the beach that long, it's going to change dramatically. It may disappear ; Most of North Carolina's 320 miles "You can leave your lot in Raleigh on the day you're born, come back to it in seventy years, and there will be practically no change in the shape of the lot. If you have a lot on the beach that long, it's going to change dramatically. It may disappear ; —Spencer Rogers of island beaches are backing up. Some 48 percent of the shoreline has been eroding at a rate greater than two feet each year. Eighteen percent of the coastline has been disappearing at an annual rate of more than six feet a year. But about 54 miles of North Carolina beaches are actuall
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcollectionunclibra, booksubjectoceanography
