What do you think?
Rate this book
The Battle for North Carolina's Coast: Evolutionary History, Present Crisis, and Vision for the Future
The North Carolina barrier islands, a 325-mile-long string of narrow sand islands that forms the coast of North Carolina, are one of the most beloved areas to live and visit in the United States. However, extensive barrier island segments and their associated wetlands are in jeopardy. In The Battle for North Carolina's Coast , four experts on coastal dynamics examine issues that threaten this national treasure.
According to the authors, the North Carolina barrier islands are not permanent. Rather, they are highly mobile piles of sand that are impacted by sea-level rise and major storms and hurricanes. Our present development and management policies for these changing islands are in direct conflict with their natural dynamics. Revealing the urgency of the environmental and economic problems facing coastal North Carolina, this essential book offers a hopeful vision for the coast's future if we are willing to adapt to the barriers' ongoing and natural processes. This will require a radical change in our thinking about development and new approaches to the way we visit and use the coast. Ultimately, we cannot afford to lose these unique and valuable islands of opportunity. This book is an urgent call to protect our coastal resources and preserve our coastal economy.
According to the authors, the North Carolina barrier islands are not permanent. Rather, they are highly mobile piles of sand that are impacted by sea-level rise and major storms and hurricanes. Our present development and management policies for these changing islands are in direct conflict with their natural dynamics. Revealing the urgency of the environmental and economic problems facing coastal North Carolina, this essential book offers a hopeful vision for the coast's future if we are willing to adapt to the barriers' ongoing and natural processes. This will require a radical change in our thinking about development and new approaches to the way we visit and use the coast. Ultimately, we cannot afford to lose these unique and valuable islands of opportunity. This book is an urgent call to protect our coastal resources and preserve our coastal economy.
- GenresNonfictionScience
160 pages, Hardcover
First published April 18, 2011
2 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 5, 2021
My husband purchased this from a gift shop in the Outer Banks many years ago. Given its content, I can only guess that it was at one of the National Park Service sites in the region. I finally started reading it a few weeks before our current vacation and when my husband asked me what I thought of it, my quick response was: "It's like a white paper, with pictures and graphs." And that's a complement in the best possible way (My husband loves to read technical white papers for fun).
This book is a geological overview of the barrier islands in North Carolina, exploring their geological history, their current patterns of dynamic movement, and the challenges of maintaining human infrastructure. The book is chocked full of fascinating photographs and charts, that allow you to see the geological foundations and changing shoreline patterns. It critiques the current ecological management practices-- the sand dredging, the bridge-building over moving inlets, the sandbagging, the buildings that prevent sand overwash-- not only are they costly and often ineffective in long-term, but they also prevent the barrier island's natural process of rollover-- moving westward and accumulating height from storm overwash. Our human attempts at preserving capitalist stability and progress hurts the ecology and geology of the region.
The book does offers sensible alternative for the region, one that maintains a tricky balance between capitalist and tax base realities, and ecological conservation. It suggests preserving the highly populated Kitty Hawk, Nags Head and Kill Devil Hills, but abandons the NC-12 road at Oregon Inlet, allowing the stretch of Cape Hatteras National Seashore and the small villages of Roanoke, Avon etc... to become a "string of pearls" accessible by a ferry system with greater promotion of eco-tourism and potentially minimal motor vehicle islands.
This book was written back in 2011 and now it is ten years later, in 2021, and so far the powers that be have not gone for that alternative. The Bonner Bridge, that used to span Oregon Inlet, has been replaced by the Marc Basnight bridge, purportedly designed to be a 100 year bridge, and to adjust to the changing sea conditions. It boasts 84 feet deep bridge pile foundations, multiple channels for ships to minimizing dredging. We will see how it holds up in my lifetime during regular hundred year and thousand year storms.
But I digress-- this is a very informative read, especially if you liked to spend time in the Outer Banks. Highly recommended.
This book is a geological overview of the barrier islands in North Carolina, exploring their geological history, their current patterns of dynamic movement, and the challenges of maintaining human infrastructure. The book is chocked full of fascinating photographs and charts, that allow you to see the geological foundations and changing shoreline patterns. It critiques the current ecological management practices-- the sand dredging, the bridge-building over moving inlets, the sandbagging, the buildings that prevent sand overwash-- not only are they costly and often ineffective in long-term, but they also prevent the barrier island's natural process of rollover-- moving westward and accumulating height from storm overwash. Our human attempts at preserving capitalist stability and progress hurts the ecology and geology of the region.
The book does offers sensible alternative for the region, one that maintains a tricky balance between capitalist and tax base realities, and ecological conservation. It suggests preserving the highly populated Kitty Hawk, Nags Head and Kill Devil Hills, but abandons the NC-12 road at Oregon Inlet, allowing the stretch of Cape Hatteras National Seashore and the small villages of Roanoke, Avon etc... to become a "string of pearls" accessible by a ferry system with greater promotion of eco-tourism and potentially minimal motor vehicle islands.
This book was written back in 2011 and now it is ten years later, in 2021, and so far the powers that be have not gone for that alternative. The Bonner Bridge, that used to span Oregon Inlet, has been replaced by the Marc Basnight bridge, purportedly designed to be a 100 year bridge, and to adjust to the changing sea conditions. It boasts 84 feet deep bridge pile foundations, multiple channels for ships to minimizing dredging. We will see how it holds up in my lifetime during regular hundred year and thousand year storms.
But I digress-- this is a very informative read, especially if you liked to spend time in the Outer Banks. Highly recommended.
January 14, 2014
A very sobering book for fans of the Outer Banks. Between natural erosion, increasing storms, global warming/rising sea levels, it is not likely that the outer banks will survive long in anything like its current form. Fixes to try to hold off change are doomed to fail AND certain to cause significant problems elsewhere. (Numerous pictures illustrate this futility and damage over the last 50 years.) It is surprising to see how the coastline has oscillated over the eons--from way out to sea in colder low-sea eras, to way inland during warmer high-sea eras. These kinds of significant changes are quite likely by the end of this century and even sooner. The most interesting part of the book is the vision of some 8 isolated villages (including Ocracoke and Buxton) that are high and stable enough to exist (at least for a while unaided), and allowing the inlet creation and Route 12 over wash to continue naturally. For anyone who has driven down the Outer Banks and Route 12 lately (we did in June), it is shocking how much development has occurred, in places and ways that are totally unsustainable. I suppose owners/developers expect the government and insurance to step in and protect their investments. It is hard to see how any gradual transition could occur--it seems like it would need a big damaging storm. This is mostly a global warming scenario, but one in which the impact is quite visible and imminent. Anyone interested in OBX should read this.
Update 12/3/13: Here's what he's talking about--the Bonner Bridge connecting Highway 12 to Hatteras is washing away and is being closed for emergency repairs: https://apps.ncdot.gov/newsreleases/d...
Update 1/14/14: Here's the bigger picture along the US East Coast: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/sci...
Update 12/3/13: Here's what he's talking about--the Bonner Bridge connecting Highway 12 to Hatteras is washing away and is being closed for emergency repairs: https://apps.ncdot.gov/newsreleases/d...
Update 1/14/14: Here's the bigger picture along the US East Coast: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/sci...
March 8, 2014
This should be a must read for everyone living at or near the coast, everyone involved in the economics and legislation of coastal areas, and everyone who's taxes are affected by coastal areas. And not just North Carolinians. Coastal areas vary, but the effect of human alteration or intervention of coastal areas must be understood by a greater portion of the population if we are to minimize or avert the damage our choices can make.
Well written and very readable with minimum jargon. Excellent pictures, charts, and graphs (yup, it is science after all).
Well written and very readable with minimum jargon. Excellent pictures, charts, and graphs (yup, it is science after all).
January 16, 2012
These authors were able to convey some highly technical and scientific subject matter in a heartfelt way that should speak to all who love the NC coast, from locals to preservationists to vacationers. This book showed the past, present, and possible futures that don't have to end in disaster and heartbreak. I loved this book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews