6 - Options in Spatially Restricted Environments

Summary

Chapter 6 identifies how cross-shore environmental gradients are altered where houses are close to the water and how natural habitats can be accommodated in truncated, compressed, decoupled, or fragmented gradients. Achievable restored states include those that require strategies that accommodate natural processes or those that restrict natural processes. Actions are suggested for publicly managed (usually municipal) zones seaward and privately managed zones landward. Natural gradients can occur on developed coasts where sediment supply is ample (e.g., beach nourishment sites). Where space is restricted by structures, dunes can be managed to provide the seaward portion of a dynamic and naturally functioning incipient dune (truncated environmental gradient) or a spatially restricted sampler of a wider natural dune (compressed environmental gradient) that must be maintained using sand fences and vegetation plantings. Suggestions are also made for allowing dunes to migrate onto private lots to create an expanded gradient or for maintaining dunes on private lots as remnants that are fragmented or decoupled from the beach by shore-parallel protection structures.