The Corps and the Shore [Paperback]

Orrin H. Pilkey (Author), Katharine Dixon Wheeler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1559634391 | ISBN-13: 978-1559634397 | Publication Date: February 1, 1998 | Edition: 1

In The Corps and the Shore, Orrin H. Pilkey, the nation's most outspoken coastal geologist, and Katharine L. Dixon, an educator and activist for national coastal policy reform, provide a comprehensive examination of the impact of coastal processes on developed areas and the ways in which the Corps of Engineers has attempted to manage erosion along America's coastline. Through detailed case studies, the authors demonstrate the shortcomings of the Corps' underlying assumptions and methodology. As they discuss the role of local citizens in the project process, they highlight the interaction between local Corps offices and community officials and residents. By focusing on different types of problems in various regions of the country, Pilkey and Dixon clearly show how the Corps has repeatedly failed to act in the best interest of those most affected by the projects. As well as criticizing Corps practices, the authors provide numerous suggestions for reforming the Corps and making it both more scientifically accountable and more accountable to the citizens it is intended to serve.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The future of our shoreline, say the authors, is not in the hands of a natural resource agency but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They believe coastal scientists should be in charge. Professor of geology at Duke University Pilkey (The Beaches Are Moving, with Wallace Kaufman) and Dixon, research associate with the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, are critical of the corps and its practices. This book is an eloquent call for public debate about improving coastal management. By the 1980s, coastal scientists had recognized the destructive role of sea walls, but the engineering community had not. The National Park Service rejects shoreline engineering, and the practice is now illegal in four states. The authors examine in depth five corps projects-Folly Beach, S.C.; Sargent Beach, Tex.; Presque Isle in Lake Erie; Camp Ellis, Maine; and Oregon Inlet, N.C. They discuss the impact on beaches of winds, waves and storms, and the final chapter offers suggestions for improving the Corps' coastal science. This critique should be required reading for coast dwellers. Photos.

Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 286 pages
• Publisher: Island Press; 1 edition (February 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559634391
• ISBN-13: 978-1559634397
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,339,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Orrin Pilkey is the James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Earth and Ocean Sciences in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. He is a marine and coastal geologist, specializing in the study of barrier islands and the impact of humans on our shorelines. At the start of his career, he was a specialist in the deep sea sedimentology of abyssal plains. When his parents lost their house in Waveland, Mississippi, during Hurricane Camille (1969), he was inspired to come into shallower waters and study coastal geology.

He is the author or co-editor of 40 books, including recent ones on the problems with mathematical models (Useless Arithmetic, Columbia), the Corps of Engineers (The Corps and the Shore, Island), a handbook for beach observation (How to Read a North Carolina Beach, UNC), barrier islands (A Celebration of the World's Barrier Islands, Columbia) and most recently, sea level rise (The Rising Sea, Island). He is also the co-editor with Bill Neal of the Living with the Shore state-specific coastal hazard series (Duke Press). In addition, he has written 250 technical publications. He has received a number of awards including the Shepherd Award for excellence in Marine Geology, the Priestley Award, and Public Service awards from several geologic societies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, harrowing, and definitive, August 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Corps and the Shore (Hardcover)

Scourge of developers everwhere, coastal geologist Pilkey is the deepest and most penetrating thinker we have about our complex relationship with the shoreline. With this book, Pilkey makes public his disgust with the ham-handed and over-engineered tactics of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and their walling of the American coastline.

Whether you live near the coast, are thinking of moving there, or are just curious about those million-dollar Malibu mansion you see tumbling into the Pacific every winter, you need to read this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bad Corps: Who's Responsible for BAd Coast Policy in the US?, July 7, 2001

By 

"drpolitics" (Ames, IA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Corps and the Shore (Paperback)

Book: The Corps and the Shore Authors: Orrin H. Pilkey, Katharine L. Dixon

It's not difficult to beat up the Army Corps of Engineers. It's run roughshod over more than one engineering and erth moving project. In this book the authors make a compelling case (as do several other good books)that the Corps used traditional steel and concrete projects to force human utilization on the nation's coastal zones. In spite of the very incisive and useful analysis in this book we should recognize that American's love the coast, are moving there in unprescedented numbers, and are investing massive amounts of capital in housing, recreational, and commercial construction.

Was the Army Corps of Engineers a culprit in the "urbanization" of America's coastlines and beaches or was the Corps an inevitable partner in coastal development? My own analysis (see our discussion at ...) is that the coast and seashore is a magnet for population throughout the world. Most "megacities" in the world are coastal cities. It is instructive that, although the Corps exists only in the United States, "Corps-like" construction and structures which seriously assault the coastal areas (by "armouring" the beach) takes place in all the coastal zones I have studied.

Everyone who has visited, lived, or worked near the beach must read this book. But ask yourself this "If the Army Corps had not undertaken these projects who would have done so?"

Steffen Schmidt, Ph.D Professor of Politics and Coastal Policy Iowa State University and Nova Southeastern University, Oceanographic Center, Ft. Lauderdale

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for any Marine Engineer!, March 10, 2006

By 

Mr. Cormac Murphy (Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Corps and the Shore (Hardcover)

This book should be on the required reading list for any course on Marine and Coastal Engineering. As Engineers we love the challenge of designing and building sometimes wonderful structures as solutions to perceived engineering problems. While engrossed in the math, the modeling and the logistics, we often neglect to stand back and look at work of the real master of the Marine environment - Mother Nature herself, and the real problem in the majority of these cases, our interference with her naturally engineered structures. This book does that eloquently from an acutely informed point of view. It offers an invaluable engineering counterpoint and shouldn't be dismissed as simply a couple of greens having a cut at the corps!