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  • Matters Arising
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Sandy beaches can survive sea-level rise

Nature Climate Change volume 10, pages 993–995 (2020)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 27 October 2020

The Original Article was published on 02 March 2020

arising from M. I. Vousdoukas et al. Nature Climate Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0697-0 (2020)

Vousdoukas et al.1 assert that global sea-level rise (SLR) poses a threat to the existence of sandy beaches. They use global databases of sandy beaches, bathymetry and wave conditions to drive a simple model based on the Bruun rule to quantify shoreline retreat, to which they add a background ambient trend based on satellite data. When retreat is more than 100 m by 2100, they declare those beaches near extinct by the end of the century. We feel that this is an incorrect and potentially damaging finding. Critical to the paper’s conclusions is the fact that, provided that accommodation space is available, beaches migrate landwards as sea level rises and shorelines retreat. Many contemporary beaches formed thousands of years ago and migrated landwards during postglacial SLR2. Globally, hundreds of beaches have been retreating at rapid rates for more than a century, but have not been extinguished3. In southwest France, for example, the shoreline has receded >100 m but still has wide and healthy beaches4. The underlying premise of Vousdoukas et al.1 originates in an inappropriate model—the Bruun rule, in which SLR promotes offshore sediment transport. As stated in their methods1: SLR-induced shoreline retreat “…depends on the amplitude of SLR and the transfer of sediment from the subaerial to the submerged part of the active beach profile”. While we agree that offshore sediment transport might happen in cases of very steep topography, in most cases sediment transport is onshore during SLR2,5.

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Fig. 1: The geomorphology and material landward of a sandy beach are important determinants of its behaviour under SLR.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography and Environmental Science, Ulster University, Coleraine, UK

    J. A. G. Cooper & D. W. T. Jackson

  2. Geological Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

    J. A. G. Cooper, A. N. Green & D. W. T. Jackson

  3. Coastal Processes Research Group, Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK

    G. Masselink

  4. School of Environment, Faculty of Science, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    G. Coco

  5. School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    A. D. Short

  6. CNRS, UMR EPOC 5805, Université de Bordeaux 1, Pessac, France

    B. Castelle

  7. School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia

    K. Rogers

  8. Aix Marseille University, CNRS, IRD, INRA, Coll France, CEREGE, Aix-en-Provence, France

    E. Anthony

  9. USR LEEISA, CNRS, Cayenne, French Guiana

    E. Anthony

  10. School of Earth and Climate Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA

    J. T. Kelley

  11. Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    O. H. Pilkey

Authors
  1. J. A. G. Cooper
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  11. D. W. T. Jackson
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Contributions

J.A.G.C. wrote the initial draft and all authors discussed, commented upon and made substantial contributions to successive drafts.

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Correspondence to J. A. G. Cooper.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Climate Change thanks Charles Fletcher and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Cooper, J.A.G., Masselink, G., Coco, G. et al. Sandy beaches can survive sea-level rise. Nat. Clim. Chang. 10, 993–995 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-00934-2

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