Sea level rise outpaced by vertical dune toe translation on prograding coasts

Sea level is rising due to climate change and is expected to influence the development and dynamics of coastal dunes. However, the anticipated changes to coastal dunes have not yet been demonstrated using field data. Together with international colleagues, Coastal Dynamics researchers Christa van IJzendoorn and Sierd de Vries analysed fielddata of the Dutch coastal dune translation with machine learning techniques. They provided evidence of dune translation that is characterized by a linear increase of the dune toe elevation on the order of 13–15 mm/year during recent decades along the Dutch coast. This rate of increase is a remarkable 7–8 times greater than the measured sea level rise. Their findings were published in Scientific Reports of the Nature Publishing group.