DYNAMICS OF BEACH-DUNE SYSTEMS

Beaches and coastal dunes are dynamic geomorphic systems that respond to process forcing over a broad spectrum of spatial and temporal scale s. At all scales, there are potential suites of interaction between sy stem forms and processes, and the mechanisms of interaction are stress ed in this article. At micro-scales, this interaction is formalized th rough the concept of morphodynamics, and deterministic and probabilist ic approaches are used to model sediment transport and landform develo pment over time scales of hours to months and space scares of metres t o kilometres. Meso-scale interactions are conceptualized using a sedim ent-budget approach. Nine characteristic environments comprise the bea ch and dune sediment-budget ensemble, representing a classification sc heme for reciprocating coastal systems.