In this study, two 50 m segments of dune on an intermediate beach were monitored monthly with a terrestrial lidar scanner. Topographic changes and vegetation coverage were quantified at high spatial resolution (0.1 m in the alongshore and cross-shore dimensions) and used to investigate dune response to a series of major tropical and extratropical storm events.

CURRITUCK COUNTY, North Carolina — A Corolla civic group has filed suit against Currituck County, challenging more than $40 million the county has spent in occupancy tax revenue on projects and services since 2004.

CARTERET COUNTY — At noon Saturday, environmentalists at Fort Macon State Park in Atlantic Beach and at Bogue Inlet Fishing Pier in Emerald Isle joined hands in a gesture of opposition to offshore oil and gas exploration and support for protecting the coastal environment.

KITTY HAWK, N.C. (WAVY) - Bigger dunes, sand fences and vegetation are all part of keeping the beach, and NC Highway 12 in Kitty Hawk near the Black Pelican, from washing away, again.

Dune restoration project reaches closeout with 300,000 new plants installed

ATLANTIC BEACH, N.C. (WNCT) - The town of Atlantic Beach has lowered the number of time visitors can park at designated zones.

North Carolina can’t seem to stop promoting risky development on our fragile barrier islands.

CHARLESTON, SC — In a court filing late Thursday, the federal government said it is “simply evaluating all its options,” when it comes to its drilling plan, appearing to soften previous comments from Interior Secretary David Bernhardt that an Alaska court decision had put on hold the Trump administration’s push to open the Atlantic Ocean and other waters to offshore oil rigs.

NORWALK — In the less than three months Anthony Carr has been on the job as the city’s chief of public works and operations, one main issue has taken center stage — flooding.

Dominion Energy will begin construction on the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project in the coming weeks, the Virginia-based energy company’s chairman, president, and chief executive officer Thomas F. Farrell said.

This year’s 190 million spawning females doesn’t reach that “healthy” level, but it’s still 29% above last year and the fifth largest number since the survey began.

Oysters got attention from lawmakers this year in both Maryland and Virginia, but the issue sparked bitter debates in Annapolis.

KINGSTON, R.I. - May 6, 2019 - Researchers at the University of Rhode Island who analyzed AirBnB rental data before and after construction of the Block Island Wind Farm have found that, contrary to some concerns, the turbines have increased tourism on the island.

KURE BEACH, North Carolina - Beach renourishment in Kure Beach was completed April 29th. The project began earlier this year to pump sand on the beach front in Carolina Beach and Kure Beach. Crews working for Weeks Marine, Incorporated completed the $21-million project. The Carolina Beach portion was completed earlier this year.

After lasting nearly four years longer than expected, Nags Head’s rebuilt beach is getting another shot of sand.

CARTERET COUNTY — More than seven months after Hurricane Florence, local governments are still awaiting the bulk of reimbursement funds for debris cleanup and other immediate recovery efforts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In Houston, it was the petrochemical plants. In North Carolina, it was the hog farms. In both places, churning floodwaters caused by recent storms were turned into a toxic stew that endangered local water resources and public health.

KURE BEACH - A $17.4 M project that began earlier this year to pump sand on the beach front in Carolina Beach and Kure Beach is nearing completion.

SURF CITY, NC (WECT) - Work to rebuild sand dunes damaged during Hurricane Florence came to a stop in Surf City.

Washington is announcing a goal of retrofitting or removing all of its flood-prone buildings by 2050, the first major U.S. city to set such a policy. City sets goal for 2050 as threat from climate change worsens. Challenges include new housing, addressing federal buildings

After holding up nearly four years longer than expected, Nags Head’s rebuilt beach will get another shot of sand, with offshore dredging scheduled to start Wednesday.

WACHAPREAGUE, Va. — The tide is high, but this seaside town is holding on.

NORFOLK - Six new concepts to fight sea level rise and climate change will be coming to Hampton Roads after the state recently announced $1.5 million in grants to a half-dozen companies.

The Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) allows any state with a coastal management programs approved by NOAA to review all federal and federally permitted activities that have the potential to impact the state’s coastal resources. This “consistency review” process is a critical component of the CZMA, but the ANPR requests suggestions for altering this well-established process and proposes limiting the ability of states to defend their consistency determinations.

It’s official- there won’t be a trophy rockfish season in Virginia this spring. Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC) has voted unanimously to enact an emergency closure because of worrisome new research about the striped bass population on the Bay.

A general permit for marsh sills, a type of “living shoreline,” is now available to people in coastal North Carolina who want to stabilize estuarine shorelines.

In 2018, sewer lines across Greensboro released more than 3.5 million gallons of untreated sewage onto roads and into waterways.

A “cool looking” act of nature is being credited with transforming beaches at the Outer Banks into something resembling a moonscape, including “unusually large sand pedestals.” Adding to the oddity: The pedestals featured wind-cut “light and dark patterns” that resembled layers of a cake.

On September 14, 2018, Hurricane Florence made landfall on the North Carolina coast before idling in place for days. As it moved westward across the state at only 2-3 MPH, the sluggish storm saturated the Carolinas with an average 17.5” of rainfall—and close to 36” in some areas.

By a narrow 3-2 vote, Southern Shores Town Council at its April 2 meetings gave preliminary approval to limiting septic capacity for all new Southern Shores homes and capping the overnight occupancy for any vacation rental property at 14 persons.

In 2018 and again during the recent legislative session, the General Assembly passed significant legislation regarding the management of oysters (“Maryland General Assembly overrides Hogan’s veto of oyster sanctuaries bill,” April 8).

Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company (GLDD) finished working eastward from the submerged pipeline landing at 8th Street on Saturday (April 6), and is now working westward from 8th Street, informs the Carteret County Shore Protection Office.

A new study of Virginia's barrier islands off the coast of the Eastern Shore provides a fundamental understanding of how barrier islands will change in the near future amid a warming climate, sea-level rise and storm events such as hurricanes and nor'easters.

NORFOLK, Va. – Norfolk District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a five-year services contract to U.S. Facilities Inc. for operations and maintenance of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway’s locks and bridges.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – Renourishment to Sandbridge Beach and dunes are soon to come after an agreement was authorized to use of up to 2.2 million cubic yards of sand from federal waters.

Anapolis, MD – The efforts of the many partners of the Chesapeake Bay Program to restore the nation’s largest estuary continue to yield promising results. The partnership’s annual science-based snapshot, Bay Barometer: Health and Restoration in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed 2017 – 2018 reports encouraging signs of resilience throughout the ecosystem and continues to build upon our high standards of science and data by tracking new indicators of environmental health.

The fortunes of the Resource Institute could continue to dwindle, as the towns of Topsail Beach and Surf City are asking their lawmaker for tax dollars originally appropriated to the controversial nonprofit.

Flooding, the costliest and most common disaster in the United States, leaves no part of the country untouched: from nor’easters along the coast of Maine, to king tides in Florida, to overflowing rivers in Nebraska, to mudslides in California.

State environmental officials ruled Monday that Duke Energy must dig up all of the coal ash submerged near the Belews Creek Steam Station for disposal in a lined landfill or for possible recycling.

Beach engineer Chris Gibson expected some of the newly arrived sand to be pushed back out to sea during the spring northeaster season, but said it’s all a part of the symbiotic relationship between beach nourishment work and “Mother Nature."

It didn't take long for the county to announce they would be working with the Army Corps of Engineers to begin an emergency dredging project of the inlet.

BOGUE BANKS — The $20.1 million beach nourishment stalled a bit late last week because of bad weather and sea conditions, but it’s still on track for completion well ahead of schedule.

Well over half of the Chesapeake Bay still is polluted, but experts say water quality has improved significantly — and, in fact, is now the best they’ve ever measured.

Work under the Post Florence Renourishment project continues to progress eastward towards the Summer Winds (Indian Beach), informs the Carteret County Shore Protection Office.

Contractors will begin deploying equipment any day now and re-nourishment of the beach in Nags Head is expected to start by the end of April.

The Chesapeake Bay shoreline — rife with inlets, necks, and tributaries both large and small — stretches 11,885 miles, longer than the entire west coast of the U.S.

Visits to National Park System sites across the country were down in 2018 versus 2017, but the Cape Hatteras National Seashore was one of the notable exceptions of the park system’s 418 units, with the highest recorded visitation since 2003.

NORFOLK, VA - Can Virginia make money off sea level rise? The very idea sounds backwards — usually frequent flooding from bigger and more destructive storms is costly. Remember Hurricane Florence? One study showed a direct hit could have cost the region $5 billion of its gross domestic product in just three months.

WILMINGTON, N.C. – When the long-standing state ban was lifted on terminal groins, a handful of beach towns jumped at the chance to build a case for why a hardened erosion-control structure would be their best line of defense against losing sand.

As entire islands disappear in Chesapeake Bay, the oyster is enlisted as a first line of climate defense. In Sudden Spring: Stories of Adaptation in a Climate-Changed South, Rick Van Noy shows what communities are doing to become more climate-resilient and to survive environmental challenges. Here, he tours Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Virginia Beach, where entire islands are disappearing because of rising sea levels. He finds that, in the shadow of the nearby naval base, the best defense against the effects of climate change may come from an unexpected source: the humble oyster.

The Massachusetts Port Authority announced that $35 million has been secured to help fund the ongoing Boston Harbor Dredging Project. The project is approximately 30 percent complete, and this funding will enable the project to continue on schedule.

A Record of Decision has been received from the Federal Highway Administration for the Mid-Currituck Bridge, indicating federal approval of a span between Aydlett on the mainland and Corolla on the Outer Banks.

Codes, zoning and infrastructure are more impactful than government-supported insurance policies, according to panel of economists and real estate experts

MIDDLETOWN — The salty patches were small, at first — scattered spots where soybeans wouldn’t grow, where grass withered and died, exposing expanses of bare, brown earth.

“People want things back to normal sooner rather than later.”

The Town of Nags Head, NC, will be conducting a beach nourishment maintenance project starting in May 2019 and lasting possibly into October 2019.

EMERALD ISLE — Barring unforeseen circumstances, the long-planned $20.1 million beach nourishment project for eastern Emerald Isle, Indian Beach and Salter Path will begin Friday.

Accomack residents weighed in recently about the impact sea level rise is having on their lives. The Eastern Shore of Virginia lies in one of the nation's most vulnerable coastal regions, where scientists say sea levels are rising at three to four times the global average and storms are intensifying.

RALEIGH – For coastal North Carolina, where many communities are still reeling from the effects of last year’s storms, the top local requests for help from the General Assembly so far fall in two interrelated categories: sand and money.

OAK ISLAND, NC (WECT) - About 130 people packed Oak Island Town Hall on Tuesday night for a special meeting with most in attendance to discuss the debate over whether the town should implement paid parking by the beach.

Residents heard an update on the county's 1-cent sales tax