Natural Coastal Dune-Field Landforms, Plant Communities, and Human Intervention along Buenos Aires Northern Aeolian Barrier

SILVIA MARCOMINI; MADANES N; BERTOLIN, M. L; RUBEN L ´ OPEZ; PICCA PABLO; LILIAN BERTOLIN

JOURNAL OF COASTAL RESEARCH

COASTAL EDUCATION & RESEARCH FOUNDATION

Lugar: Florida; Año: 2016 vol. 000 p. 2 - 16

0749-0208

The dune field that stretches NE of Buenos Aires coast has been altered by urbanization since the early 20th century,with a maximum urban growth reached in 1970 that generated important changes in natural dune landforms andvegetation cover. The introduction of some exotic shrub and tree species has increased dune-field stabilization andchanged wind transport rates on it and toward the beach. This lack of aeolian sediment supply to the beach causedsubsaturation in marine littoral drift currents, increasing beach erosion along several resorts located along the northernBuenos Aires coast. Additionally, some native herbaceous species, at some time dominant in the past in dunecommunities, have been replaced by these foreign woody plants, altering consequently the structure and composition ofthe original plant communities and, indirectly, dune growth, activity, and mobility. The purpose of this paper is to studythe original geomorphology and some basic attributes of the natural plant communities that characterize the coastaldune field to establish the relationship between the original aeolian dynamics and man-induced changes in the evolutionof the coastal system. This study documents dune morphology and salient aspects of the associated vegetation (floristiccomposition, abundance of each species) over an original dune field and discusses the impacts of afforestationsaccompanying dune-field real-state developments. In the future, coastal management should regulate the expansion of