This paper is a case history of coastal development at Camp Ellis, Saco, Maine. It begins in 1867 with dredging and jetty construction at the mouth of the Saco River to facilitate commercial navigation. Beach accretion, resulting from tidal delta collapse, was followed by residential development before the ephemeral nature of the shoreline was recognized. A misunderstanding of the riverine source of beach sand and the net, northward direction of longshore transport confounded U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACOE) efforts to maintain navigation and the adjacent beach. Beach erosion at Camp Ellis claimed dozens of properties before the role of the north jetty at the mouth of the Saco River became apparent to state and university scientists. Erosion also led to sand migration to the north and to the closure of the Little River inlet and growth of Pine Point spit. This spit was later developed and a jetty was placed at its tip to preclude continued accretion into the Scarborough River inlet. Despite numerous studies, the USACOE failed to recognize the connection between beach erosion at Camp Ellis and beach accretion at Pine Point. Under political pressure, the USACOE recently conducted detailed modeling studies and has proposed construction of breakwaters seaward of Camp Ellis to solve the problem. A discussion of the pros and cons of this proposal is presented in light of the long history of development at Camp Ellis.

Duxbury Beach, Massachusetts, is a retreating, transgressive barrier that is effectively managed to meet a range of competing land uses. While the barrier is heralded as a natural coastal setting, the entire landform is methodically engineered on an ongoing basis to best accomplish the goals established for the beach within a context of natural processes. Historical and geological data indicate that the natural barrier form includes numerous ephemeral tidal inlets (some of which have migrated) and overwash channels, and low discontinuous dunes. At present, the managed barrier has a continuous vegetated foredune and broad backdune. Management techniques have evolved over the past several decades based on growing experience and understanding of the coastal processes and of wildlife habitats. Although the foredune crest is reconstructed each spring, the entire beach is gradually being allowed to retreat to remain in equilibrium with rising sea level. The lagoonal shore is being widened through beach nourishment and through proposed creation of back-barrier salt marshes using silty dredge spoil. Uses of the barrier include town and public recreational beaches, off-road vehicle access, a right-of-way to isolated communities, flood protection of landward areas, and shorebird nesting habitat.

Westhampton Beach is located between two stabilized inlets (Shinnecock and Moriches Inlets) on a barrier island on the south shore of Long Island, New York. Increasing beach erosion in the 1970s prompted a request for construction of a groin field to trap sand and restore the beach. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers developed a plan for the groin field, and their recommendation was to sequentially build the groins up drift (eastward toward Shinnecock Inlet) using standard project design. However, in the late 1970s, local community pressure forced the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, contrary to project design, to construct the groins down drift (westward) toward Moriches Inlet. The aim was to restore the eastern, more commercial, part of Westhampton Beach first. Financial limitations in 1972 suspended the project before its completion. Unfortunately, this set the stage for serious problems because the groin field was meant to operate as a completed project, and major problems developed soon after project termination. As a result, severe erosion and multiple washovers occurred west of the last groin. The major nor'easter of 1992 breached the island and destroyed many homes. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in an emergency operation, dredged offshore sand and filled the breaches before they widened too much for effective closure. The subsequent litigation among the homeowners, the county, and the state spread over a number of years. A final settlement was reached on 31 October 1994. However, in a time of sea-level rise on a developed barrier island between two stabilized inlets, more people and bigger structures have now been put in peril.

Pea Island, Oregon Inlet, and Bodie Island, North Carolina, are severely human-modified barrier-island segments that are central to an age-old controversy pitting natural barrier-island dynamics against the economic development of coastal North Carolina. Bodie Island extends for 15 km from the Nags Head–Kitty Hawk urban area to the north shore of Oregon Inlet and is part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Pea Island extends 19.3 km from the southern shore of Oregon Inlet to Rodanthe Village and is the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. Bodie and Pea Islands evolved as classic inlet- and overwash-dominated (transgressive) simple barrier islands that are now separated by Oregon Inlet. The inlet was opened in 1846 by a hurricane and subsequently migrated 3.95 km past its present location by 1989. With construction of coastal Highway 12 on Bodie and Pea Islands (1952) and the Oregon Inlet bridge (1962–1963), this coastal segment has become a critical link for the Outer Banks economy and eight beach communities that occur from Rodanthe to Ocracoke. The ongoing natural processes have escalated efforts to stabilize these dynamic islands and associated inlet in time and space by utilizing massive rock jetties and revetments, kilometers of sand bags and constructed dune ridges, and extensive beach nourishment projects. As the coastal system responds to ongoing processes of rising sea level and storm dynamics, efforts to engineer fixes are increasing and now constitute a “human hurricane” that pits conventional utilization of the barriers against the natural coastal system dynamics that maintain barrier-island integrity over the long term.

As a result of the natural setting plus poor development and management decisions, the town of North Topsail Beach on Topsail Island, North Carolina, is the state's most vulnerable barrier-island community. It is our view that this very narrow, low, and duneless island community is the most hazardous on the U.S. East Coast. Although most of North Topsail Beach was designated a CoBRA unit under the Coastal Barrier Resources Act of 1982, the area has been developed extensively (mostly post-1980), starting with “mom and pop” beach cottages, and evolving into large single-family rental houses, duplexes, and several medium- and high-rise hotels and condos. Over the years, North Topsail Beach has experienced property losses from storm surge, overwash, flooding, inlet migration, new inlet formation, and chronic shoreline erosion. The single evacuation road crosses seven swash channels and is flooded early in every significant storm. A political cauldron has evolved, often featuring the front-row property owners versus those behind the front row, in which this middle-class town seeks to solve its problems. Debate centers on beach erosion problems, including proposed beach nourishment; exemptions to banned shore hardening; and construction of a proposed terminal groin and inlet channel realignment.

Folly Beach is a case study on the effects of multiple coastal barrier island management techniques. After the emplacement of the Charleston Harbor jetties in the late 1890s altered coastal sediment supply, Folly Island's beaches have retreated, and beachfront homeowners of the 1900s have attempted to slow the beach's retreat to protect their property along an eroding coast. The jetties interfere with the longshore transport of sand, depriving the beach of sand resources that has led to an erosion rate estimated between 0.3 m/yr and 1.8 m/yr. The town of Folly Beach has armored the shoreline and hard stabilization structures to protect property and prevent structures from being overwashed by waves. Now, property owners must rely on beach renourishment to retain a recreational beach and to protect their property. Charleston's wetlands, estuaries, and barrier islands are a major economic engine for the region, and Folly Beach is an important tourist destination. Politics, multiple measurement techniques, and poor understanding of the effects of hard stabilization structures on the beach have complicated the ability of policy makers and the public to navigate the variety of issues associated with coastal erosion in this region. Furthermore, its long history of development and attempts to stabilize the beach qualify Folly Island as one of America's most vulnerable beaches and an excellent case study on the effectiveness of different techniques in this dynamic system.

Southeast Florida's beaches, which are heavily developed and imperiled by rising sea level, continue to be seriously mismanaged and uneconomically maintained and to generate increasing environmental stress for adjacent marine habitats. Broward County heads the list of counties that stretch from St. Lucie southward to Miami-Dade. Five serious problems plague the stability of these barrier-island shorelines: inlet disruption of littoral drift; beach management that enhances shore erosion (lack of shore vegetation, inappropriate vehicular traffic, and structural protections that enhance erosion); historically very poor-quality renourishment sediment (in size and durability); strong resistance by coastal engineering and dredging firms and counties to embrace an understanding of sandy shore dynamics; and a philosophy that renourishment projects are a solve-all management approach to maintaining beaches and protecting infrastructure. This has led to seriously destabilized beaches, overly aggressive beachfront development, major economic waste, and severe environmental degradation to adjacent marine waters and associated valuable sandy bottom and hard-bottom communities. Many of these sandy shorelines may well not survive this global warming century of rapidly rising sea level. It is economically and environmentally critical for both the future risks to be understood and for lessons from the repeated failed history of beach management to be learned. Continued mismanagement will shorten the inhabitable lifetime of this developed sandy coast by decades and at great economic and environmental cost.

Through federal funding under the Stafford Act, private beachfront property and public infrastructure on the west end of Dauphin Island, Alabama, have repeatedly been restored following tropical storm impacts. The island has two distinct geomorphological portions due to the protection of the offshore ebb-tidal delta. The lower western end has become a prime target for beachfront development and consequently the recipient of the bulk of the federal largesse. It is clear that failed public policy at every level, local, state and federal, has contributed to an irresponsible fiscal commitment to constant redevelopment. Serious review and revision of the Stafford Act is recommended as a consequence of these considerations.

Hurricane Rita devastated gulf-front communities along the western Louisiana coast in 2005. LIDAR (light detection and ranging) topographic surveys and aerial photography collected before and after the storm showed the loss of every structure within the community of Holly Beach. Average shoreline change along western Louisiana's 140-km-long impacted shore was −23.3 ± 30.1 m of erosion, although shoreline change in Holly Beach was substantially less, and erosion was not pervasive where the structures were lost. Before the storm, peak elevations of the dunes, or berms in the absence of dunes, along the impacted shore averaged 1.6 m. The storm surge, which reached 3.5 m just east of Holly Beach, completely inundated the beach systems along the impacted western Louisiana shore. The high surge potential and low land elevations make this coast extremely vulnerable to hurricanes. In fact, most of the western Louisiana shore impacted by Rita will be completely inundated by the storm surge of a worst-case Saffir-Simpson category 1 hurricane. All of this shore will be inundated by worst-case category 2–5 storms.

Galveston Island and Bolivar Peninsula have experienced a well-documented history of shoreline and bay shoreline change ranging from +3.63 m/yr to −1.95 m/yr. By integrating core, Light detection and ranging (LIDAR), and coastal change data, we develop a sand budget that attempts to quantify long-term sand sources (e.g., fluvial sand cannibalization through transgression) and sinks (washover fans, offshore sand bodies, and flood-tidal deltas). These results are then considered in light of anthropogenic influences (e.g., beach-nourishment projects, coastal engineering structures, and dredging operations) in an attempt to relate natural versus human influence on coastal change. Our findings suggest that hurricane washover (Galveston Island = 0.4 m/100 yr; Bolivar Peninsula varies from 0.154 m/100 yr to 0.095 m/100 yr) and offshore sand deposits are minimal long-term sand sinks. Flood-tidal deltas, however, appear to be major locations for natural sand sequestration. We also conclude that damming of rivers has had minimal impact on the upper Texas coast, although hard structures, such as the Galveston seawall and its groins, have exacerbated erosion along a shoreline that is currently sand starved. The impact of hard structures has mainly been one of trapping sand in locations where that sand would not have naturally accreted. Sand supply is minimal, so understanding and developing a better sand budget for the Texas coast are vital to sustainability.

Puerto Rico's high population density (430/km 2 ) and concentrated development in the coastal zone result in communities that are highly to extremely vulnerable to coastal hazards. Tsunamis pose the greatest extreme risk (e.g., 1867 southeast coast; 1918 northwest coast), and westward-moving hurricanes have a history of severe impact (e.g., Hurricane Hugo, 1989; San Ciriaco Hurricane, 1899). The north and west coasts experience far-traveled swell from North Atlantic winter storms (e.g., the Perfect Storm of 1991) which severely impact the coast. Sea-level rise threatens flooding of low-lying coastal mangroves, wetlands, and low-elevation developments, and erosion of wave-cut bluffs will accelerate (e.g., south coast Municipios [equivalent of counties] of Arroyo and Guayama, just west of Cabo Mala Pascua). Anthropogenic effects have seriously modified coastal processes to create high- to extreme-risk zones. Examples include removal of protective dunes and beach sediment by sand mining (e.g., Piñones, Caribe Playa Seabeach Resort, and Camuy), and erosional impacts due to marinas (e.g., erosion rates of 3 m/yr in Rincón area due to Punta Ensenada marina). Communities have taken poor courses in erosion control by emplacing shore-hardening structures along over 50 separate coastal stretches (e.g., seawalls at San Juan Harbor and Arecibo; groins in Ensenada de Boca Vieja), and utilizing poor construction designs (e.g., gabions). Beach profiling reveals that beaches narrow and disappear in front of such structures (no dry beach in front of 55% of seawalls surveyed). Mitigation must come through prohibiting construction in high-risk zones, encouraging wider adoption of setback principles (e.g., Villa Palmira), relocating after storms, enforcing anti–sand-mining regulations, and better public education.

The 100,000-km-long coastline of Europe has a long history of human occupation and intervention in coastal processes. Rapid coastal development that began in the 1960s, however, has accelerated during the past decade with increased human mobility and affluence. This has had disastrous consequences for the European beach resource. Through a series of examples in the UK, Spain, and Italy, we show that poorly sited infrastructure is the primary reason for beach erosion problems, and that decision-making in the area of beach management suffers inherent weaknesses; current practice concentrates on the symptoms (through coastal defense or nourishment) but has been unable to address the root cause (ill-planned development). Consequently, society has become locked into an open-ended series of ameliorative measures that, in turn, fuel ongoing development by removing the element of financial risk from coastal development. The scale of contemporary development on the European coast means that the beach erosion problem will become more acute with time, even without the anticipated large-scale coastal morphological adjustment to sea-level rise. Storms, tsunamis, and a reduction in sediment supply mean that existing coastal infrastructure poses a long-term financial liability. Eventually, the costs involved in continued defense may precipitate changes in public policy. There are indications of this happening, but in the meantime, development increases apace, not just in Europe, but on adjacent Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts, to satisfy a mainly European demand.