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Abstract:
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Earth’s coastline defines the interface between land and water.
Although the area they cover is insignificant, their linear extent is
enormous and the variety of landforms they evolve over earth’s surface
is remarkable. Over one third of the world’s population lives either at the
coasts or in adjacent coastal low land areas. The coast is a zone of
intense energy input. This energy transported by waves, arrives at the
coast and is available for work. The result is that the processes of
sediment transport are set in motion – processes that cause
morphological change. Thus the coasts are the most rapidly changing
places on earth's surface and they play an important role in global
transportation of sediments and hence studies on the coastal zone
where air, land and water interact is a focus of particular interest among
the scientific community. The coastal areas across the world are also of
extreme economic importance as they contain abundant natural
resources and favorite tourist destinations because of their highly scenic
landscape |