Sea level is rising due to climate change and is expected to influence the development and dynamics of coastal dunes. However, the anticipated changes to coastal dunes have not yet been demonstrated using field data. Here, we provide evidence of dune translation that is characterized by a linear increase of the dune toe elevation on the order of 13–15 mm/year during recent decades along the Dutch coast. This rate of increase is a remarkable 7–8 times greater than the measured sea level rise. The observed vertical dune toe translation coincides with seaward movement of the dune toe (i.e., progradation), which shows similarities to prograding coasts in the Holocene both along the Dutch coast and elsewhere. Thus, we suspect that other locations besides the Dutch coast might also show such large ratios between sea level rise and dune toe elevation increase. This phenomenon might significantly influence the expected impact of sea level rise and climate change adaptation measures.

In sandy beach systems, the aeolian sediment transport can be governed by the vertical structure of the sediment layers at the bed surface. Here, data collected with a newly developed sand scraper is presented to determine high-resolution vertical grain size variability and how it is affected by marine and aeolian processes. Sediment samples at up to 2 mm vertical resolution down to 50 mm depth were collected at three beaches: Waldport (Oregon, USA), Noordwijk (the Netherlands) and Duck (North Carolina, USA). The results revealed that the grain size in individual layers can differ considerably from the median grain size of the total sample. The most distinct

Coastal aeolian sediment transport is influenced by supply-limiting factors caused by sediment sorting by grain size. Sorting processes can lead to coarsening of the bed surface and influence the formation of aeolian ripples. However, the influence sorting processes and bedforms might have on the magnitude of the transport is not fully understood. This study explores sorting processes and their influence on the magnitude and mode of aeolian transport by using sediment tracers. Sand was painted in different colors according to particle size and placed on a supratidal beach in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. Several experiments were conducted with varying wind