Review of Beach and Dune Restoration by Karl F. Nordstrom: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; 2008; ISBN 13:978-0-521853-460. Price: $140.00.

As stated in the preface, Beach and Dune Restoration was written to be a companion volume to other coastal engineering design manuals on the use of beach nourishment and dune restoration as storm protection structures. This book states that it is intended to provide ideas on modifying practices of beach and dune engineering to enhance natural processes and make them more dynamic while maintaining beach and dune functions as shore protection structures and managing them over time as functional natural features. This book will likely become a useful text for advanced undergraduate and graduate coastal engineering and coastal zone management classes as well as a reference for coastal engineers, planners, and managers. Although it is not a design manual, it will provide the practicing coastal engineer and coastal planner with ideas and reasons to design beach fills with dunes that will be more natural and will provide environmental benefits while still providing shore protection.

The book is divided into eight chapters: “The Need for Restoration”; “Beach Nourishment and Impacts”; “Dune Building Practices and Impacts”; “Restoring Processes, Structure, and Functions”; “Options in Spatially Restricted Environments”; “A Locally Based Program for Beach and Dune Restoration”; “Stakeholder Interests, Conflicts, and Cooperation”; and “Research Needs.” Photographs provide examples from various locations around the world. Illustrations are sparse but help the reader to understand the processes and configurations described. Tables are used throughout to provide more information on the subject.

Chapter 1 (18 pages) provides a statement of the problem and an overview of beach restoration. The chapter describes how urban coastal environments are modified by human interaction, such as erosion pressures and conflicting use practices. The author emphasizes the importance of beaches and dunes in the coastal environment. He identifies the need to restore beaches and dunes that have been under erosion pressures. Chapter 1 also briefly defines concepts and approaches to restoration commonly used today and introduces types of restoration projects.

Chapter 2 (30 pages) describes the common beach nourishment project practices used today. The primary focus of this book is to evaluate the long-term feasibility of using beach nourishment to enhance natural habitats in highly developed settings. General design considerations and sediment characteristics are briefly reviewed. Potential negative environmental impacts are discussed in terms of their effects on placement and borrow areas. These impacts include burial and turbidity, changes in beach morphology and dynamics, and the introduction of noncompatible sediment and mineralogy, such as sediment that is coarser or finer than native sediment. Long-term impacts on the biota, aesthetic and recreational problems, and the increased incentive for infrastructure growth on a nourished beach are also briefly discussed. The author adds alternative practices that can minimize environmental loss and enhance the projects by improving or creating habitat while also creating new beach area. He discusses alternative designs to improve beach shape, size, and spatial aspects and to restore sediment characteristics. Monitoring and adapting management to increase project performance is also introduced.

Chapter 3 (17 pages) covers dune-building practices and their impacts for both nourished and other beach environments. Characteristics of human-altered dunes, as compared to natural dunes, are discussed. Dune-building processes, including aeolian processes, direct deposit during nourishment, beach scraping, and using various configurations of dune fencing, are discussed. The role of vegetation in dune building is also covered. Multiple strategies for building dunes are also introduced. The author suggests that the restored dune should be considered as part of the resource of a beach nourishment project.

Chapter 4 (28 pages) covers restoring processes, structure, and functions of the modified beach and dunes. The author discusses the issue of dynamism in the management of a restored system, where the dune is dynamic and should be allowed to adapt to naturally changing conditions. The concept of altering or removing sore protection structures to allow the system to obtain a more natural development is introduced and includes breaching existing dikes or dunes to make a more natural variable habitat, changing the effects of hard structures by lowering elevations of seawalls or modifying groins to reestablish sediment transport. In the discussion of restricting cleaning seaweed and other debris off the beach, the author points out that this natural debris is an environmental resource. The practice of restricting driving on beaches and dunes also helps to preserve a healthy system as does removing or altering sand fencing. Other topics covered in this chapter include protecting endangered species, altering growing conditions, reintroducing or restricting grazing, mowing vegetation, removing vegetation and sediment, replacing vegetation to stabilize blowout areas and to restore excavated dunes, and controlling exotic species. Allowing time for naturalization to take place and for determining the appropriate levels of dynamism to allow in the restoration is discussed.

Chapter 5 (13 pages) discusses the options for dune restoration in spatially restricted environments. Six alternative types of dune restoration on developed coasts are introduced and discussed: the natural gradient, truncated gradient, compressed gradient, expanded gradient, fragmented gradient, and decoupled gradient. The implications of each type based on the resources and space available between the upland development and the waterline are discussed.

Chapter 6 (22 pages) covers aspects of locally based programs for beach and dune restoration and elements to be considered in local-scale restoration, based on programs developed in New Jersey. The need for local action and a six-point program are presented. The program includes accepting natural landforms and habitats, identifying reference conditions and environmental indicators, establishing demonstration sites to evaluate the effectiveness of building natural systems, developing realistic guidelines for restoration and management practices, developing and implementing public education programs to favor natural restoration, and maintaining and evaluating the restored system. This last point includes designing a monitoring program and creating a stable funding source.

Chapter 7 (12 pages) focuses on stakeholder interests, conflicts, and cooperation. The importance of obtaining public support is stressed. The need for compromise solutions is discussed. Once the key players are identified, the stakeholders must identify areas of disagreement and how to resolve them, expand the concept of public good, create several alternative solutions, and accept increased costs if necessary to meet all goals. Contrasts in stakeholder perceptions and values are discussed, and resolving conflicts by compromise is explored. Principal stakeholders and their roles are identified. These stakeholders include municipal managers, developers and property owners, scientists, and environmentalists. Management strategies that tolerate change, vary management use zones, allow landforms and habitats to evolve over time, tolerate inconveniences during the project, accept the value of natural landscapes and the use of nature-based tourism all lead to a successful project.

The final chapter, chapter 8 (13 pages), examines research needs. Some of the suggestions offered in the book represent alternatives that have not been tested in actual practice, so the author suggests that research and monitoring be conducted on these techniques. As for nourished beaches, there is a need to evaluate and study adverse impacts. New placement techniques and alternative dredge and fill technologies need to be evaluated. Measures of success need to be better defined, and this could expand the scope of these projects beyond coastal engineering, to sediment, morphology, and environmental and economic benefits. Cost constraints need to be overcome in order to realize added benefits to the environment. The author makes the case that dune building needs to be an integral part of a restoration project. Accommodating or controlling the dynamics of the restoration is needed. Spatially restricted environments and maintenance of a habitat in a limited space need to be studied. Stakeholder concerns and needs also must be addressed to achieve a successful project outcome. The author suggests that new guidelines are needed on maintaining and evaluating restored projects to quantify project benefits and performance.

This book provides a practical overview for planning and implementing beach and dune restoration projects that provide shore protection for humans while preserving a natural habitat along the coast. The book offers suggestions on many aspects of implementing a project that seeks to make an engineered beach/dune system as much like the natural environment as possible.