VIMS

Research Projects

Brazil Beach

Coastal populations, infrastructure and ecological communities are already experiencing the direct effects of atmospheric warming, accelerated sea-level rise, changes in the frequency and intensity of coastal storms, and natural and anthropogenic variability in sediment-delivery rates. Our research address the complexities of Holocene coastal evolution and the sedimentologic record to predict interrelated changes in each of these drivers in forecasting the impact of future climate change on coastal evolution.

Associated studies cover timescales from years to millennia, and span from the strandplains of southern Brazil, to the mouths of the Ganges-Brahmaputra and Amazon rivers, across the paraglacial coast of New England, and through the dunes, marshes, and barrier islands of the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic USA, with a particular focus on Virginia's Eastern Shore. 

Click on the project titles below to learn more about individual projects:

Pleistocene Sea-Level Change

Progradational Beaches as Archives of Holocene Coastal Change

Barrier-Island Dynamics

Barrier-Marsh Couplings

Saltmarsh Processes & Accretion

Dune Dynamics & Management

Rivers & the Global Carbon Cycle

Other Projects