While many of Maine's state beaches are lined with houses and roads, one stretch of sand, and an adjacent beach park, could reveal how beaches and dunes behave with limited human intervention.
Caitlin Cleaver, the director of the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area in Phippsburg, Maine, is on a dune looking out over Seawall Beach and the Sprague Marsh behind it.
“We are looking at a system here where we can watch the natural processes unimpeded by development," Cleaver said."And so it’s a really important place for understanding how these systems will respond to sea level rise over time.” Slovinsky said myriad factors influence beach movement. There's erosion during the stormy winter season, and during the placid summer months sand is deposited along the shoreline. And there are tides, and longshore currents created by waves. Atop these variables is the sea level, which scientists predict will rise by about a foot and a half in the next 25 years.
Seawall Beach, adjacent to the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area, is owned by the Small Point Association, which manages it for its unspoiled character. “The first time that I really came down here was probably 25 years ago. And it’s a huge change from 25 years ago," Meader said. “The beach is always changing, because of the tide coming and going. The Morse River really makes a bigger difference. Like those people walking right there. That was a big mound there. The mound that they are walking towards that was built up, that was six feet higher than what it is, a month ago.
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