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Orrin H. Pilkey, deemed "America’s foremost philosopher of the beaches," by the New York Times, is James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Geology at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. Pilkey is a coauthor (with Keith C. Pilkey) of Global Climate Change: A Primer, published by Duke University Press, and of twenty books in the Press's Living with the Shore series, edited by Pilkey and William J. Neal. In 2013, The Orrin Pilkey Marine Science and Conservation Genetics Center opened at the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort, North Carolina. Pilkey lives in Hillsborough, N.C.
J. Andrew G. Cooper is Professor of Coastal Studies in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Ulster. He and Pilkey are coauthors (with William J. Neal and Joseph T. Kelley) of The World's Beaches: A Global Guide to the Science of the Shoreline and coeditors of Pitfalls of Shoreline Stabilization. Well known for his advocacy of nonintervention on shorelines and his work on beaches and coasts worldwide, Cooper lives in the town of Coleraine in Northern Ireland.
List of contents
Foreword vii
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xvii
1. The End is Nigh! 1
2. Selling the Family Silver: Beach-Sand Mining 24
3. Indefensible: Hard Structures on Soft Sand 41
4. Patch-up Jobs: Beach Replinishment 70
5. The Plastisphere: Trash on the Beach 95
6. Tar Balls and Magic Pipes 107
7. Stuck in a Rut: Driving on the Beach 123
8. The Enemy Within: Beach Pollution 139
9. The International Dimension of Beach Destruction 160
10. The End is Here 175
Appendix 1 199
Appendix 2 203
Bibliography 207
Index 233
About the author
Orrin H. Pilkey, deemed "America’s foremost philosopher of the beaches," by the New York Times, is James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Geology at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. Pilkey is a coauthor (with Keith C. Pilkey) of Global Climate Change: A Primer, published by Duke University Press, and of twenty books in the Press's Living with the Shore series, edited by Pilkey and William J. Neal. In 2013, The Orrin Pilkey Marine Science and Conservation Genetics Center opened at the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort, North Carolina. Pilkey lives in Hillsborough, N.C.
J. Andrew G. Cooper is Professor of Coastal Studies in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Ulster. He and Pilkey are coauthors (with William J. Neal and Joseph T. Kelley) of The World's Beaches: A Global Guide to the Science of the Shoreline and coeditors of Pitfalls of Shoreline Stabilization. Well known for his advocacy of nonintervention on shorelines and his work on beaches and coasts worldwide, Cooper lives in the town of Coleraine in Northern Ireland.
Summary
The geologists Orrin H. Pilkey and J. Andrew G. Cooper sound the alarm in this frank assessment of our current relationship with beaches and the grim future if we do not change the way we understand and treat our irreplaceable shores.