Many of Puerto Rico's beaches are eroding, and though rates of erosion vary, it is a major concern for the tourism and residential development industries. More than 85 percent of the population lives within 7 kilometers of the coast and they are heavily dependent on tourists that are attracted by the island's beaches and coral reefs. High-quality scientific data are needed to help formulate public policy regarding residential and commercial construction along the coast, beach replenishment, and future use of marine resources. Scientists have long recognized that the causes of coastal land loss are not limited to a relative rise in sea level, but can be manmade as well. For example, sediment supply to beaches especially along the north shore of Puerto Rico has been strongly affected by upstream river channeling, dam construction, various agricultural practices, paving and urbanization, as well as shallow-water oceanographic processes. The response to coastal erosion in Puerto Rico has been mostly crisis based leading to engineered solutions that have a negative effect on the coastal environment.
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In part, this has been a result of natural evolutionary processes, but human activities, such as dredging wetlands for canals or draining and filling for agriculture, grazing, or development, share a large part of the responsibility for marsh habitat alteration and destruction. Louisiana's wetlands today represent about 40 percent of the wetlands of the continental United States, but about 80 percent of the losses. The State's wetlands extend as much as 130 kilometers inland and along the coast for about 300 kilometers. Not all the wetlands are receding; in fact some wetlands are stable, and others are growing. But, at the present net rate of wetlands loss, Louisiana will have lost this crucial habitat in about 200 years. Considerable effort has been expended, and will continue to be expended, on understanding the processes that control wetlands evolution.
","language":"English","publisher":"U.S. Geological Survey","publisherLocation":"Reston, VA","doi":"10.3133/70182016","usgsCitation":"Williams, S.J., Louisiana coastal wetlands: a resource at risk, HTML Document, https://doi.org/10.3133/70182016.","productDescription":"HTML Document","onlineOnly":"Y","costCenters":[{"id":186,"text":"Coastal and Marine Geology Program","active":true,"usgs":true},{"id":678,"text":"Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center","active":true,"usgs":true}],"links":[{"id":335492,"type":{"id":24,"text":"Thumbnail"},"url":"https://pubs.usgs.gov/thumbnails/usgs_thumb.jpg"},{"id":335487,"rank":1,"type":{"id":11,"text":"Document"},"url":"https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/la-wetlands/","text":"Report","linkFileType":{"id":5,"text":"html"},"description":"Report"}],"country":"United States","state":"Louisiana","geographicExtents":"{\n \"type\": \"FeatureCollection\",\n \"features\": [\n {\n \"type\": \"Feature\",\n \"properties\": {\n \"stroke\": \"#555555\",\n \"stroke-width\": 2,\n \"stroke-opacity\": 1,\n \"fill\": \"#555555\",\n \"fill-opacity\": 0.5\n },\n \"geometry\": {\n \"type\": \"Polygon\",\n \"coordinates\": [\n [\n [\n -91.26068115234375,\n 28.803766775462204\n ],\n [\n -90.0714111328125,\n 28.803766775462204\n ],\n [\n -90.0714111328125,\n 29.351057685705033\n ],\n [\n -91.26068115234375,\n 29.351057685705033\n ],\n [\n -91.26068115234375,\n 28.803766775462204\n ]\n ]\n ]\n }\n }\n ]\n}","noUsgsAuthors":false,"publicationStatus":"PW","scienceBaseUri":"58a57713e4b057081a24eee8","contributors":{"authors":[{"text":"Williams, S. Jeffress 0000-0002-1326-7420 jwilliams@usgs.gov","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1326-7420","contributorId":2063,"corporation":false,"usgs":true,"family":"Williams","given":"S.","email":"jwilliams@usgs.gov","middleInitial":"Jeffress","affiliations":[{"id":678,"text":"Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center","active":true,"usgs":true}],"preferred":true,"id":669279,"contributorType":{"id":1,"text":"Authors"},"rank":1}]}} ,{"id":70182019,"text":"70182019 - No Year - Seafloor studies of Mamala Bay, Honolulu, Hawaii","interactions":[],"lastModifiedDate":"2017-03-29T10:08:18","indexId":"70182019","displayToPublicDate":"1996-12-31T00:00:00","noYear":true,"publicationType":{"id":18,"text":"Report"},"publicationSubtype":{"id":6,"text":"USGS Unnumbered Series"},"title":"Seafloor studies of Mamala Bay, Honolulu, Hawaii","docAbstract":"No comprehensive study of the effects of disposal of dredge spoils has been conducted to determine if the environment has suffered. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has regularly dredged the shipping channels of Honolulu Harbor and Pearl Harbor for commercial and military purposes. The 5-year frequency for new dredging activity has led to the formation of extensive offshore wide deposits of relatively coarse sediments being created in a sedimentary environment that naturally collects much finer-grained materials. At the same time, the rapid growth of Honolulu and its suburban region over the past 3 decades has added nutrient-enriched sewage outfall to the artificially-heavy sediment load. The combined effects of dredge-spoil disposal and contaminant loads are not well-documented, and are poorly understood. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) began a comprehensive study to characterize the seafloor of Mamala Bay.
In 1993, the USGS initiated a program sponsored by the USACE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that produced a detailed map of the seafloor, especially of the distribution of dredge spoils, and a preliminary analysis of the environmental effects of dredge-spoils disposal and the chemical effects of the introduction of nutrient-rich outfall. Part of the work would involve sediment sampling, biological testing, and evaluation. Of particular interest is tissue sampling and analysis of endemic shrimp to determine the rates of absorption of toxic elements, such as heavy metals, that are easily brought into the food chain.
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