For generations, the United States has been waging a multibillion-dollar war against the forces of wind and tide. But the wind and the waves are winning. Their beaches are literally washing away. Wash. The road once stretched to a parking lot, which has long since washed away. At the heart of the issue, experts say, is a fundamental misperception about beach erosion and the nature of beaches.
Sandy coastlines are highly dynamic.
Unaltered by man, they exist in perfect balance, eroding in some places while accreting in others. But when man attempts to hold the beach in a particular location, the effort inevitably backfires and erosion rates often accelerate. But we build buildings very close to the edge of the sea, and when they are threatened we build sea walls or groins or revetments, and that dooms the beach. To ecologists, the problem is a failure to understand that for beaches to survive, they must be free to move and evolve. To property owners in coastal areas, the problem is that they've built a permanent structure on a temporary landscape.