Understanding the long-term, morphologic resiliency and migration transformation of
barrier islands with application to the management of Fire Island, NY
Paul R. Pinet, Professor of Geology and Environmental Science
Department of Geology, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 13346
Tel: 315-228-7656; ppinet@colgate.edu
The theories of engineering and ecological-social resiliency as applied to barrier islands
are well-developed and widely applied across meso-scale (annual, biannual) and macroscale (decadal) time spans, respectively. However, management strategies directed at
stabilization typically compromise the long-term, morphologic resiliency of barrier
islands, ultimately rendering them vulnerable to disintegration and drowning in place.
Underappreciated and ignored are the mega-scale (centennial, millennial) processes that
are driven by slow variables, such as sea-level rise and climate change. At the megascale level, the collective effect of dune erosion, breaching, overwash, and rollover cause
unfettered barrier islands to assume a dynamic transformation whereby they migrate
landward episodically in response to sea-level rise. I will address the efficacy of using a
mega-scale perspective for managing Fire Island, a thin, ~50-km-long, open-ocean,
barrier island along the southern shore of Long Island. In essence, I propose that shortterm stabilization and restoration efforts continue to be judiciously applied to the densely
populated western reach of Fire Island. In contrast, I apply management strategies
designed to protect the nonlinear mega-scale processes that shape its eastern reach with
consists mostly of local, state and federal parkland. As such, the eastern reach, which
will separate from its western half as it migrates into Great South Bay, is likely to survive
well into the 21st century; the western reach likely will not because of the unaffordable
engineering costs to stabilize it in place over the long term.
Paul R. Pinet, Professor of Geology and Environmental Science
Department of Geology, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 13346
Tel: 315-228-7656; ppinet@colgate.edu
My graduate training was in sedimentary geology at the University of Massachusetts and
in marine geophysics studying the origin of continental margins at the University of
Rhode Island. In 1972, I taught at the University of Georgia and did clay sedimentation
research in the sounds around Sapelo Island. In the summer of 1978, I accepted a position
at Colgate University in upstate New York, where I worked on a USGS project on the
flow patterns and stratigraphy of the Blake Plateau. With a Colgate colleague, I then
studied erosion and sedimentation patterns along the southeastern shoreline of Lake
Ontario and subsequently developed a course in coastal geology. I wrote a college-level
oceanography text, which is now in its 7th edition. Currently, my research focus is
promoting a mega-scale perspective (centuries and millennia) for managing barrier
islands, such as Fire Island. I’m a member of Coastal Education & Research Foundation
(CERF) and the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association.