183
However, throughout the last half of the twentieth century, exploding growth and
development has greatly increased the magnitude of the “perfect conflict”, mentioned earlier, between people and the environment. Residents and business owners
are anxious for an engineered quick fix. These quick fixes, however, are analogous
to doing quadruple heart by-pass surgery on our dragon without a detailed understanding and acceptance of the dragon’s physiology. Before we do surgery, we must
also know the long-term risks and costs of surgery to both the natural dragon’s
system and to the associated human systems. The extensive knowledge that we now
have of the natural history and dynamics of our coastal zone must be fully considered prior to each plan to modify the barrier islands and inlet/outlet systems with
bridges, jetties, groins, bulkheads, navigational dredging, and sand mining for beach
nourishment. Coastal systems are an integrated complex that cannot be extensively
modified or engineered without significantly affecting the health and resiliency of
barrier islands and estuaries, sand beaches and dunes, fisheries and wetlands and, of
course, water quality and adequate freshwater availability.
A Vision for the Future of a Dynamic Coastal System
North Carolina’s coastal economy is largely dependent upon a mixture of agriculture, forestry, and tourism. This economy is perched on a dynamic system of low
wetlands and mobile barrier islands. Large portions of these ecosystems are being
overwhelmed by storms in the current period of rising sea level at the same time as
the coastal population has boomed in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Thus, North Carolina finds itself in the throes of a “perfect conflict” an escalating battle between dramatic anthropogenic alteration of the landscape and the
natural dynamics of coastal change.
Following a 33-year long love affair with teaching and research, I retired from my
faculty position at the end of 1999 and was awarded the position of Distinguished
Research Professor by East Carolina University. Commencing in year 2000, several
colleagues and I organized a coastal team of about 50 scientists and graduate students
and led a decade-long research program titled, “Origin and Evolution of the
Northeastern NC Coastal System”. This program, funded by the US Geological
Survey and US National Park Service, produced hundreds of published technical
papers, graduate theses, monographs, reports, and scientific seminars. As our research
team approached the end of the project, the realization dawned upon us that although
we had learned huge amounts of new information, we had done little to educate the
general public directly about this awesome and invaluable natural resources of our
coastal system. In response, four members of the research team wrote a book for the
general public entitled, “The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast”, published in 2011.
The book was written in three major sections. The first section was a summary of
the “Evolutionary History” of the coast and the second was a description of the
“Present Crisis” within the NC coastal system (the aforementioned “perfect conflict”). From our perspective, both of these were slam dunks and we thought we
11 A Scientist’s Personal 70-Year Discourse with Past, Present and Future Coastal…
However, throughout the last half of the twentieth century, exploding growth and
development has greatly increased the magnitude of the “perfect conflict”, mentioned earlier, between people and the environment. Residents and business owners
are anxious for an engineered quick fix. These quick fixes, however, are analogous
to doing quadruple heart by-pass surgery on our dragon without a detailed understanding and acceptance of the dragon’s physiology. Before we do surgery, we must
also know the long-term risks and costs of surgery to both the natural dragon’s
system and to the associated human systems. The extensive knowledge that we now
have of the natural history and dynamics of our coastal zone must be fully considered prior to each plan to modify the barrier islands and inlet/outlet systems with
bridges, jetties, groins, bulkheads, navigational dredging, and sand mining for beach
nourishment. Coastal systems are an integrated complex that cannot be extensively
modified or engineered without significantly affecting the health and resiliency of
barrier islands and estuaries, sand beaches and dunes, fisheries and wetlands and, of
course, water quality and adequate freshwater availability.
A Vision for the Future of a Dynamic Coastal System
North Carolina’s coastal economy is largely dependent upon a mixture of agriculture, forestry, and tourism. This economy is perched on a dynamic system of low
wetlands and mobile barrier islands. Large portions of these ecosystems are being
overwhelmed by storms in the current period of rising sea level at the same time as
the coastal population has boomed in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Thus, North Carolina finds itself in the throes of a “perfect conflict” an escalating battle between dramatic anthropogenic alteration of the landscape and the
natural dynamics of coastal change.
Following a 33-year long love affair with teaching and research, I retired from my
faculty position at the end of 1999 and was awarded the position of Distinguished
Research Professor by East Carolina University. Commencing in year 2000, several
colleagues and I organized a coastal team of about 50 scientists and graduate students
and led a decade-long research program titled, “Origin and Evolution of the
Northeastern NC Coastal System”. This program, funded by the US Geological
Survey and US National Park Service, produced hundreds of published technical
papers, graduate theses, monographs, reports, and scientific seminars. As our research
team approached the end of the project, the realization dawned upon us that although
we had learned huge amounts of new information, we had done little to educate the
general public directly about this awesome and invaluable natural resources of our
coastal system. In response, four members of the research team wrote a book for the
general public entitled, “The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast”, published in 2011.
The book was written in three major sections. The first section was a summary of
the “Evolutionary History” of the coast and the second was a description of the
“Present Crisis” within the NC coastal system (the aforementioned “perfect conflict”). From our perspective, both of these were slam dunks and we thought we
11 A Scientist’s Personal 70-Year Discourse with Past, Present and Future Coastal…