ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the authors’ research on the patterns in long-term rates of shoreline change and overwash penetration for a 1300-km section of the Atlantic coast. The position of the shoreline on the beach face is variable because water levels change with tides and waves. Using the Orthogonal Grid Mapping System, shoreline erosion and overwash information can be acquired rapidly and systematically from aerial photographs. There are two separate processes that give definition to the width of the overwash penetration zone: overwash events that widen the zone and vegetation regrowth that narrows the zone. The chapter shows that greater gains can be achieved through development of systems designed to measure shoreline change at close intervals along the coast with frequent updating of the data base. It describes the stochastic approach to prediction of shorezone changes and concludes that the natural configuration of sedimentary coastlines, as determined by shorezone processes, is sinuous and periodic rather than straight.
