For generations, California’s beaches have defined an entire way of life: the surf culture, the sunsets, the sense that the coast goes on forever. But there has been a natural system working quietly behind those beaches, and it has been disappearing since the Gold Rush, and most people have never heard of it.
According to a study, ‘Significant Coastal Dune Loss Challenges California's Climate Resilience and Biodiversity Goals,’ published in the journal Earth's Future by researchers at UC Santa Barbara, more than half of California's coastal sand dune systems are gone. The study found that 60% of the dunes present around 1850 have disappeared due to urban development, land-use changes and erosion. It is the first such survey ever conducted for the California coast, and one of the largest and most detailed dune inventories ever produced anywhere in the world.
