The beaches are moving : the drowning of America's shoreline : with a new epilogue

Our beaches are eroding, sinking, washing out right under our houses, hotels, bridges; vacation dreamlands become nightmare scenes of futile revetments, fills, groins, what have you—all thrown up in a frantic defense against the natural system. The romantic desire to live on the seashore is in doomed conflict with an age-old pattern of beach migration. Yet it need not be so. Conservationist Wallace Kaufman teams up with marine geologist Orrin H. Pilkey Jr., in an evaluation of America's beaches from coast to coast, giving sound advice on how to judge a safe beach development from a dangerous one and how to live at the shore sensibly and safely. The Beaches Are Moving -- Who's Afraid of Sea Level? -- The Beaches Are Made of Continents -- Energy: Winds, Waves, and rides -- The Beach Is Four Miles Wide -- Barrier Islands: Let the Lighthouse Fall -- The Human Nature of Natural Disaster -- The Will to Power: An Old World Heritage -- Sand Castles and Supermen -- Engineered Shorelines: The Point of No Return -- Who Owns the Beaches? -- How to Live with a Beach -- Epilogue: It's Not All Over Now -- Checklist for Buying or Building on the Beach -- Where to See the Beaches Moving -- Bibliography of Useful Reference