ENVI 258
Coastal Processes and Geomorphology Spring 2017
Division III
Cross-listed MAST 258 / GEOS 258
This is not the current course catalog

Can people live safely along the coast? Recent events like Superstorm Sandy and the Tohoku Tsunami have shown us how the ocean can rise up suddenly and wreak havoc on our lives and coastal infrastructure. Only educated geoscientists can evaluate the risks and define informed strategies to prevent future coastal catastrophes. Currently almost half the global population lives within 100 km of the coast, with a large percent of those living in densely populated cities (e.g., New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Cape Town, Sydney, Mumbai). Despite the growing risks and challenges associated with climate change and rising sea levels, the coastal population continues to grow rapidly. Helping these growing populations to live safely along the coast requires a detailed understanding of the processes that shape the coastal zone. These processes act across a variety of scales, from deep-time geologic processes that dictate coastal shape and structure, to decadal-scale processes that determine shoreline position and evolution, to weekly and daily processes such as storms and tides. This course will provide an in-depth look at the forces-wind, waves, storms, and people-that shape the coastal zone, as well as the geologic formations-sandy beaches, rocky cliffs, barrier islands, deltas, and coral reefs-that are acted upon and resist these forces. Coastal dynamics are strongly affected by human interventions, such as seawalls, dredged channels, and sand dune removal, as well as by sea level rise and changes in storm frequency and magnitude associated with climate change. Finally, the course will provide students with a perspective on how the U.S. seeks to manage its coastal zone, focusing on sea level rise and coastal development. This class will include an all-expenses-paid Spring Break field trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina to collect oceanographic and geomorphologic data in conjunction with researchers at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Field Research Facility. Labs in the course will focus on analysis of the data collected during the field trip, and data collected previously at the Facility.