Submitted to the Daily Reflector, June, 2006

What Will Happen to Our Beaches?
Special to the Daily Reflector by Susan Butler

Lately much attention has been paid in the news to the explosion of coastal development in North Carolina. There is a good selection of books and journals in the North Carolina Collection that effectively explains the current and potential effects and changes caused by rampant development in the coastal region.

Orrin Pilkey Jr.’s “From Currituck to Calabash: living with North Carolina’s barrier islands” (1982) is described as “…a simple summary of North Carolina’s coastal hazards and a citizens’ guide to reducing vulnerability to the risks from such hazards.” This book was widely distributed and went through several printings and two editions before it was updated by Pilkey and other authors, including East Carolina University geology professor Stanley R. Riggs. The new edition, entitled “The North Carolina Shore and Its Barrier Islands: Restless Ribbons of Sand” (1998), contains new knowledge of the effects and hazards of coastal development and hazards of coastal development and addresses issues including beach mansions that have replaced modest beach cottages and erosion protection methods such as beach nourishment as an alternative to building shore-hardening structures such as jetties and seawalls.

Stan Riggs, along with ECU professor Dorothea V. Ames, recently published “Drowning the North Carolina Coast: sea-level rise and estuarine dynamics” (2003). This book provides in-depth information about erosion processes and rates along North Carolina’s northeastern estuarine shoreline. Riggs and Ames also examine sea-level rise and its effect on shoreline changes. The book is noted as “an excellent reference for educators, property owners, government officials, community planners, and resource managers.”

“Life at the Edge of the Sea: Essays on North Carolina’s Coast and Coastal Culture,” edited by Candy Beal and Carmine Prioli, examines the environmental and lifestyle changes that have occurred in the coastal region. Topics explored include the threat of the loss of the Outer Banks brogue with the influx of newcomers who are changing the complexion of the coastal region. Beal and Prioli note that “dialectologists and linguists worry about the disappearance of the brogue, and liken language loss to the extinction of a biological species.” Other chapters include coastal environmental sciences, early Native Americans indigenous to the region, and traditional Harker’s Island boatbuilding methods.

Journal publications, such as “Coastwatch” and “Wildlife in North Carolina,” provide excellent and informative articles on the environmental effects of coastal development, including the loss of species habitat and increase of pollution along coastal regions.

For the latest information on the changing face of North Carolina’s coastline and the effects of development, visit the North Carolina Collection located on the third floor of Joyner Library. Summer hours are noted on ourhome page: http://www.ecu.edu/cs-lib/ncc/index.cfm or for more information call 328-6601.

Susan Butler is a staff member in the Verona Joyner Langford North Carolina Collection.