EXPLORING THE LONG-TERM IMPACT OF BEACH ENTRANCES ON DUNE DEVELOPMENT

Beaches and coastal dunes offer many recreational opportunities and attract numerous visitors worldwide. In recent decades, the economic importance and intensity of human activities in beach-dune systems have increased, amplifying human impact on the system dynamics. Human activities can disrupt natural morphological development, affecting the natural sand transport by the wind or the vegetation development. While isolated effects of human-induced impacts have received attention in previous studies, the understanding of the long-term interactions between biophysical systems and human activities remains limited. The long- term effect of the interactions may affect the development of dunes and consequently compromise the expected functions of flood protection and enhanced spatial quality of the beach-dune systems.