As was concluded for the Lubiatowo site in subsection 3.1, the beach width, defined as the distance between

the shoreline and the dune toe positions (ys–yd), is a useful criterion of shore stability. The 25-year field measurements show that the average beach width varied from 30 to 50 m depending on the profile, with respective minimum and maximum values of 0–20 m and 60–90 m (see Figure 7). As the beach width depends on both shoreline and dune toe positions, any variability in these quantities and the correlations between them are very important in analyses of the long-term changes in beach width. The variability in the locations GS-7340 research buy of the shoreline and dune toe in the period from 1983 to 2007 is shown for six cross-shore profiles (Nos. 4, 9, 14, 18, 20 and 23) in Figure 10, which also contains values of the correlation coefficient (R) between the two time series. The correlation coefficients for the long-term period presented in Figure 10 lie in a very wide range from −0.085 (no correlation or even a small inverse correlation) to 0.758 (moderate correlation). The detailed

analysis carried out for the entire data set confirms the considerable spread of the correlation coefficients in both the short and the long term (see Figure 11). This spread is definitely broader in the analysis covering the annual observations Neratinib solubility dmso (Figure 11a) than in the multi-year monitoring. The generally higher correlations between shoreline and dune toe evolution in the long-term measurement run may be due to the natural time-smoothing of the shoreline’s response to wave impact. The shoreline is subject to immediate changes under instantaneous wave conditions, whereas the dune toe is affected only by extreme

events, which occur only rarely. In addition, the dune is affected much more by aeolian sand transport. These two coastal forms are therefore rarely well correlated. It can be seen in Figure 11 that the shoreline and dune toe positions are best correlated in the middle of the broad bay that is the section of coastline under scrutiny. This effect can be justified by the relatively narrow beach in this region (cf. Figure 7). In addition, there are some ALOX15 irregularities in the system of bars in this area. All this means that more wave energy can reach the dune toe (not only the shoreline) than in the adjacent shore sections. In this context, we can assume that the influence of nearshore bathymetry on the shoreline and dune toe positions, resulting in longshore variability of the correlations of these coastal forms, is more significant for dissipative shores than for reflective shores. Moreover, a dissipative coast has a more complicated bathymetric layout, frequently with a highly irregular bar system.