Coastal processes and landforms

This chapter charts developments in the study of coastal processes and landforms in the period between the 1960s and the end of the millennium, focusing on efforts to understand better sandy beaches, barriers and barrier islands, deltas and estuaries, tidal flats and marshes, and coral reefs. The period saw the emergence of a dual focus on, first, the elucidation of landscape history from morphological and, later, stratigraphic evidence; and, second, the relationships between shoreline morphology and processes of sediment movement. Particularly noteworthy was the integration of a broad spectrum of space scales and timescales in a conceptual framework that became known as ‘coastal morphodynamics’.