Review of Coasts: Form, Process, and Evolution by Colin D. Woodroffe : 2002, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., Price: $46.00.

Coasts is an ambitious book by Colin D. Woodroffe, a geographer and geomorphologist from the School of Geosciences at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales. The publisher states that this volume is aimed at advanced graduate and undergraduate students. In the preface, the author writes, “This book outlines the way that coasts operate. It is written for students of coastal geomorphology, coastal environments, and coastal geology, and for all those with an interest in coastal landforms or who seek insights into the way the coast behaves.”

Coasts is well-printed on heavy-coated glossy paper. It is soft-cover, $17\times 24\mathrm{cm}$ , and has 623 pages. The extensive reference list occupies 118 of these pages. However, the pages are not efficiently used. The text ends about two thirds of the way across each sheet, leaving a totally unused and wasted $5\mathrm{cm}$ margin on the outer side. Some pages do have photographs or figures that extend close to the paper edge, but most pages could have been more efficiently used if the lines of text were wider.

The chapters range from general background material on coastal processes to detailed descriptions of specific coast types to one on human interaction on the coast. The chapters on specific coastal types include ones on rocky coasts (4), reef coasts (5), beach and barrier coasts (6), deltas and estuaries (7), and muddy coasts (8). The chapters on reefs and muddy coasts are valuable contributions in a general textbook because many other undergraduate-level textbooks have a much greater (or almost exclusive) concentration on sandy barrier coasts. For example, in the muddy coasts chapter, the writer points out on p. 432 that “Muddy coasts have received far less intensive study than sandy coasts, but their complexity is becoming increasingly apparent.” Dr. Woodroffe’s comment is especially germane in light of the environmental damage that is occurring in many tropical countries, where the mangrove coasts have fallen prey to urban development and to shrimp aquaculture. Mangroves are critical nesting grounds for many fish species, a fact not yet widely appreciated. I was glad to see the writer emphasize that morphodynamic processes on muddy coasts are a result of both physical factors, such as sediment input, and of biological factors, such as plant growth and organic decomposition.

Chapter 6, on beach and barrier coasts, is 72-pages long. It contains sections on historical perspectives, morphology, morphodynamics, changes over decadal-century scales, and barrier islands. The figures include photographs of various beaches and line-drawings of beach compartments, planforms of beaches, equilibrium shore profiles, and evolution of beach states. The diagrams are well-drawn, reasonably clear, and similar to the ones in Carter’s 1988 textbook, Coastal Environments. Although I have no argument with the quality of the figures, this chapter would benefit from many more example photographs. The chapter covers much material, and many of the concepts are difficult to describe in text without an accompanying example. For example, in Figure 6.6, photographs of the equivalent beaches should accompany the diagrams of micro- and macrotidal beaches.

My main criticism of Coasts is that it is dull reading. I hate to be too harsh to a fellow author, especially one who has obviously put so much effort into his work, but some sections are gruesome. Some of the language is particularly dense:

In terms of sea level, highstands and lowstands occurred for relatively short periods and, for much of the time, sea level was intermediate, as when it was rising—a transgressive state. (p. 26).

It does not follow from the recognition that shoreline vegetation is zoned, that zonation represents succession through time; on shorelines which are not undergoing progradation, the patterning may be a static equilibrium in relation to environmental gradients in habitat factors, such as salinity or water-logging… (p. 382).

An editor who specialized in readability needed to help the writer use shorter sentences, simpler vocabulary, and shorter paragraphs. The lack of figures also handicaps this volume. Less text and more examples would have dramatically helped the flow and legibility of this book. Unfortunately, because of the dense vocabulary, long paragraphs, and convoluted sentence structure, this volume loses much of its value as a textbook. Overall, this book contains some useful information on certain aspects of coasts that other books do not address, and thus it could be a useful reference to the students and practicing engineers.