Erosion and Accretion of Beach and Spit Systems in Northwest Spain: A Response to Human Activity

Sand spit rhythmic development: A potential record of wave climate variations? Arçay Spit, western coast of France

“…Waveinduced processes are the main factors controlling sand spit development (Evans, 1942;King, 1970;Schwartz, 1982). Other factors such as the geological framework (Riggs et al, 1995;Nielsen and Johannessen, 2001;Honeycutt and Krantz, 2003); sea-level rise (Héquette and Ruz, 1991;Ollerhead and Davidson-Arnott, 1995); the sediment availability (Aubrey and Gaines, 1982;Héquette and Ruz, 1991;Park and Wells, 2007); winds and tides (Tricart, 1967) and human impacts (Bouaziz et al, 2005;Lorenzo et al, 2007;Simeoni et al, 2007) can also have key roles in sand spit morphological evolution and illustrate the complexity of studying these systems.…”

Evolution of extreme Total Water Levels along the northern coast of the Iberian Peninsula

“…However, although visualized as spotty patches, traces of active erosion do appear along the whole coast, affecting a wide variety of substratum through different processes: landslides and collapses on resistant materials (Alonso et al, 2000;Pagés et al, 2002;Flor and Flor-Blanco, 2005), which have affected even archaeological sites (Lorenzo et al, 2007); retreats or the complete loss of dune fields and soft cliffs (Rivas and Cendrero, 1994;Garzón and Garrote, 2004;Flor et al, 2004); spit collapses (Arteaga and González, 2005) or beach surface reduction (Chust et al, 2010). Quantification of rates of erosion has been attempted through photogrammetry procedures, but their link to storminess is difficult because the temporal frequency of the aerial surveys usually does not match the known changes in atmospheric circulation around the Iberian Peninsula.…”

Spatial and Time Balancing Act: Coastal Geomorphology in View of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM)

“…Although the cliff geomorphology is resistant to flooding, medium cliffs are prone to erosion and the high energy driving force can initiate cliff erosion as well as short term coastal erosion along pocket beaches. The possibility of cliff erosion along the most exposed coast strip is also documented in Lorenzo et al (2007).…”

“…Moderate vulnerability is assigned to coastal erosion and inundation for the region where the high resilience of the geomorphologic characteristics of the coastal strip to withstand the high energy of such driving forces as tides and waves. The high vulnerability of the region to storm surges (documented by measurements (Lorenzo et al 2007)) highlights the dominance of the driving forces of geomorphologic processes. Impact vulnerabilities are governed by the physical characteristics of the region and for processes along shorelines, and human intervention adds to the vulnerability to a moderate level.…”