The Coastal Foredune: A Morphological Basis for Regional Coastal Dune Development

Abstract

Coastal dunes are ubiquitous elements of the dune-beach system that exist along the shores of many water bodies in the world where waves and currents interact with available sediment and local vegetation to create combinations of form and habitat at the water-land interface. They occur in a variety of dimensions from minor hummocks of 0.5 m to huge ridges measuring more than 100 m in elevation; from a single, shore-parallel, linear ridge with a width of a few tens of meters to a complex of dune forms that extend inland tens of kilometers. From a geomorphological perspective, the commonality associated with this myriad of forms and situations is the amassing of sand to create a depositional landform proximal to the shoreline.