ABSTRACT
The coast is the dynamic interface between land, ocean and atmosphere. Two of these environments are fluid and highly mobile, while the third, the land, is comparatively stable and enduring (Bartlett, 2000). The interactions between these involve many natural forces such as wind, river discharge, waves, salt spray and ocean currents (Bosboom and Stive, 2013). Coastal processes take place at a wide range of spatial and temporal scales (Bartlett, 1993). Algal blooms, harmful or not, can extend from several hundreds of metres up to several hundreds of kilometres across (Smayda, 1997). Weather events such as storms and flooding might affect a region, or a bay, or just the area around a particular river mouth. Cliff erosion as well as beach erosion usually occurs more locally, sometimes affecting stretches of coast only a few metres wide. Coastal vegetation succession or degradation is measurable at a sub-metre scale.
