Editor’s note: Second in a series on the newest work by coastal geologist Stan Riggs, the following is an excerpt from “Cape Lookout National Seashore: Paradigm For A Coastal System Ethic.”

The book, with a foreword by conservationist Tom Earnhardt, a North Carolina Coastal Federation board member, is the first in the “North Carolina Land of Water” book series and focuses on the Cape Lookout National Seashore.

The nearly 300 photographs, maps and illustrations of shifting dunes, barrier islands and coastal wildlife are interwoven with carefully crafted maps and drawings, “tracing our coast from its ancient past through the centuries to our modern present,” according to NCLOW, the nonprofit founded by Riggs and fellow coastal geologist Dr. Dorothea V. Ames.

NCLOW’s stated mission “is to sustain NC’s dynamic water, land and air systems for generations to come.”

Land-Water-Air Interface: Nature’s Coastal Systems

I like to think that actively evolving coastal systems are like the human body with its totally interdependent array of subsystems: skeletal, muscular, circulatory, pulmonary, nervous, and endocrine systems driven by the incredible brain, heart, and lungs. It is difficult to live a healthy life without all these bodily components working intimately together. Likewise, our coastal system is dominated by an interdependent array of complex subsystems: landscapes, waterscapes, and airscapes all interacting at the land-water-air interface. The geographic conditions, geologic dynamics, meteorologic forces, and chemical-biological characteristics are critical variables that interact to produce a living, breathing, and evolving coastal system. Major coastal system drivers are the Earth’s physical landscape dynamics (uplifting of mountains and opening of ocean basins), its space partners (creating climatic zones and setting the waterscape and airscape into motion), and the life-giving energy from the almighty Sun (driving the hydrologic cycle and atmospheric circulation that dictates the resulting biosphere).

Throughout the world, wherever a water body (ocean, sea, lake, or river) meets the surrounding land, a coastal system occurs. Because all water bodies and land masses are uniquely different, no two coastal systems are alike. Rather, they each display the influence of multiple variables producing continuums of coastal system types. The landscape may be mountainous or low flatlands dominated by hard rock, sand and mud sediment, or rich and black organic matter; located in the polar, temperate, or tropical regions; or it may occur in a stable tectonic zone, an active earthquake zone, or an area dominated by volcanic activity. Likewise, the size, location, and physical-chemical-biological characteristics of the water body are also determining characteristics. A critical third component also occurs at every land-water intersection; this is the overlying atmosphere and its climatic characteristics that help determine the ultimate character and are the drivers of change for each coastal system.

Like the human body, coastal systems tend to be extremely dynamic, changing in response to energy input at several different time scales. Volcanic activity (Hawaiian Island coasts) and earthquakes (US Pacific coasts), the dominant sources of energy, occur over decades, centuries, and millennia. However, the energy input from atmospheric storm dynamics affects all coastal systems and is the dominant energy source along the US Atlantic and Gulf coasts, occurring at irregular but frequent short-term time scales. An extremely active atmosphere with rapidly changing climatic conditions is the overwhelming cumulative force that routinely produces short-term changes and long-term evolution associated with most southeastern US coastal systems. The ultimate driver of these climate systems and associated storms is our space partner, the Sun.

Natural Function of Barrier Islands: Limits to Growth, Development

Barrier islands and their associated water bodies have a set of dynamics that are established by the natural functions of Earth’s systems. The word “function” relative to the interactions between the land-water-air interface means assigned actions, activities, duties, or role. The function of interstate highways is to get vehicles from point A to point B very fast. Yes, I can ride my bike or have a picnic on an interstate, but it is guaranteed suicide for me to do so. I might instead ride a bike on a dead-end backcountry road or on a former railroad bed that has been disconnected from the grid, as these now have totally different functions. Rest areas with picnic tables and dog parks are already major components of most interstate highways and they might have separately constructed bike lanes in the future, but not today.

Absolute limits exist as to the number, size, and speed of vehicles that can use a one-lane dirt road. Absolute but different limits occur when it becomes a paved two-lane road. Soon the two-lane road becomes overwhelmed, and it is expanded to a four-lane highway, and with continued growth and development in expanding urban areas, it will evolve into six- and eight-lane segments. At some point in the situation of unlimited growth and development the function of each system will break down. Then society is generally forced to come up with new rules or zoning conditions essential for developing an upgraded or new roadway system that requires new land and higher-grade building materials for new types of vehicles that need higher speed limits, and so on.

Similar rules, or zoning, what I call geo-zoning or eco-zoning, must now be considered for natural landscapes, waterscapes, and airscapes confronted with the pressures of unlimited growth and development. The problem is that society generally sets economic rules concerning natural dynamics that maximize profits and minimize the cost of living. For example, many laws require state and federal contracts to go to the lowest bidder or require projects to have a certain cost-benefit ratio.

Often this requires that new roadways go straight through natural areas or over waterways. These laws also often eliminate or divide impoverished and minority urban areas, as well as promote minimum water drainage structures and shorter project life expectancies. Rarely do they take into consideration the cumulative impact or unintended consequences on complex, interdependent systems. In addition, a general lack of understanding of the scientific dynamics of many Earth systems leads directly to minimizing the use of scientific data relative to the economic impact of a project. Good societal and natural reasons exist for limits and constraints on our riding bikes on interstate highways; the same is true for living in active riverine floodplains, discharging waste into waterways, or building houses on ocean shorelines.

Barrier islands and their beaches are only mobile piles of sand at the intersection of land, water, and air. Yes, this is real estate that can be subdivided into house lots and developed from shore to shore. However, shoreline lots are not equal to those in the middle of an island since they are direct products of regular storm dynamics on the adjacent water body. A waterfront house for living is like camping on the interstate. The only good news is that your eventual demise will be a bit slower on the beach. With unlimited growth and development, all possible island lots are plotted, sold, and built on. This increased growth soon pressures us to replace our ferry boats with two-lane bridges that quickly become overloaded. Then new four-lane bridges are justified on the premise of the need to get more people safely off the islands during storms. Family beach cottages are rapidly replaced by big businesses that rise vertically as rental McMansions, condominiums, hotels, and full urbanization sets in.

Because sea level is rising and storms continue to impact the barrier islands with more people and larger shoreline structures attempting to prevent the shorelines from moving, beach sand begins to disappear. Pumping new sand onto the islands becomes essential, but it is soon gone even as the islands continue to be developed. The natural coastal system is now destabilized, requiring construction of groins, jetties, and bulkheads to desperately hold a beach and stop shoreline recession. Ultimately, the islands will be encased in steel, concrete, and rock walls with little to no sandy beach along an increasingly steeper shoreface.

When economic development wins the battle, with permanently fixed commercial islands in the ocean covered with urban accoutrements ranging from shopping malls to freshwater parks, the islands will have new economic functions. What happened to the barrier island with its unique natural functions and ecosystems associated with high energy sand beaches, dune fields, tide flats, and marshes that harbored the ghost crabs, sea turtles, and shorebirds? Natural barrier island limits have been violated by unlimited growth and development, and once again the stage is set for the perfect conflict between humans and their natural environment.

Similar to barrier islands, other geographic basins on Earth’s surface and in wet climatic zones (swamps, ponds, lakes, or ocean) have a function of holding water. If the geographic basin is linear and open-ended, its function might be to carry a moving flow of water, generally known as a river. Each type of water system has its own specific functions, each dictating different limits to contiguous growth and development.

Absolute limits to growth and types of development exist for high energy and mobile barrier island sand piles, riverine floodplains, swamp-forest pocosins, and estuarine marshes. Similarly, limits pertain to other landscapes, including the savage clear-cuts of the northwest US rain forests, excavations of Appalachian Mountain tops for coal, the vast deforestation of the Amazon jungle—these are all tracts of insatiable consumption driven by the indigenous American spirit monster of self-destruction. “Unlimited” human consumption has consequences; infinite growth on a finite planet is generally not compatible with natural law. We must embrace the radical notion that all of Earth’s natural resources and crucial ecosystem services are essential if we are to maintain a sustainable and high quality of life in society’s future.

Fortunately, some barrier islands, estuarine water bodies, riverine floodplains, and pocosin swamp forests have been protected from the perils of total modification and urbanization by establishing different forms of protected status such as national seashores, wildlife refuges, coastal preserves, state parks, and conservancy lands. The preservation of Cape Lookout National Seashore, or CALO in 1976 clearly demonstrates the critical interdependence between storm dynamics and the barrier island buffer zone. For these intermediary habitats to continue functioning as nature’s speed bumps, storms must unleash tremendous energy across the coastal wetlands—flooding marshes, reshaping shorelines, and maintaining the shifting sands of healthy barrier islands that buffer the uplands from the sea.

Developing a New Coastal System Ethic

In 1949, Aldo Leopold presented to the world his critical concept of a land ethic. This ethic was primarily focused on Earth’s land-based environments in general; it did not directly address either water or air as discreet components with equal voices to that of uplands. However, in the real world of our planet, land-water-air all form a crucial and highly interwoven trinity, a complex and totally integrated system of subsystems not unlike the human body or every other living organism whose component systems are interactive and interdependent parts of the whole. Society needs to apply Leopold’s land ethic to the total tripartite system of the whole Earth and its multitude of land-water-air based environments. One of the most dynamic parts of that system is the coastal component where the planet’s water world meets land, and wherever this occurs, the resultant climatic conditions tend to drive the energetic forces. This new variant of a coastal system ethic places boundaries around those regions where land and water meet and operates in response to atmospheric dynamics. In these uniquely high energy regions where forces collide, change is dominant and will always prevail.

First of two parts.

It was a nasty January day about 14 years ago, not long after publication of his book, “The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast: Evolutionary History, Present Crisis, and Vision for the Future,” when veteran East Carolina University coastal scientist Dr. Stan Riggs, the book’s lead author, had an unexpected and impactful visit. Not only did it prolong the sunset of his then-50-yearlong career, it cemented the reach of his legacy beyond academia to the lives of everyday people.

And it inspired Riggs to write 10 reader-friendly books focused on a blend of science, culture and history of North Carolina’s northeast and central coastal region.

Related: Riggs to launch first book in series Sunday on Harkers Island

“I’ve done a lot of work here, but science builds on itself,” he said. “And so, I just decided in 2018 that they could just put me in the ground, and who would care? Who would know what I’ve learned?”

In October, the first volume in the series, “Cape Lookout National Seashore, Paradigm for a Coastal System Ethic,” was released. Subsequent volumes, several of which are already written, will cover North Carolinas Inner Banks, or inland coastal region, Outer Banks and the continental shelf.

The books, all planned for release over the next three years, present Riggs’ coastal science research in accessible and understandable language, accompanied by striking photographs and graphics that seek to educate, enrich and engage readers.

Also, the ecotourism-centered program called North Carolina Land of Water that was first proposed in the book, “The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast,” has been transformed from a dim concept into its current sunbeam of possibilities. All because of the support offered to him on that blustery day.

“A nor’easter was blowing Billy out there — it was cold!,” Riggs, 87, recalled in a recent interview with Coastal Review. “I got a knock on the door, and two people were standing there. They introduced themselves and asked if we would take them out on a field trip. And I said, ‘You don’t want to go out there today.’”

But they insisted on a tour of the region he and his co-authors had written about in the book. They wanted to see it for themselves, and chat with some of the folks who lived there. Intrigued, and convinced his visitors were serious, Riggs made some quick phone calls, and soon they were all piling into a vehicle and hitting the road.

“We had one hell of a good trip,” Riggs recalled about the four-day adventure. Starting in Greenville, the group wound their way through the Albemarle Penisula and Inner Banks counties, along rivers, through the wildlife refuges, and down the Outer Banks to Ocracoke Island, then on to a ferry to the Core Banks. Some year-round residents shared “incredible” meals, he said, and invited them to stay.

“We covered the whole system,” Riggs said, a tinge of amazement still in his voice. Finally, as everyone said their goodbyes, one man got out of the car and walked over to Riggs.

“He put his arm around my shoulder, and he said, ‘The real reason we’re here is we’re going to give you some money.’

Surprised, Riggs responded: “‘I don’t need money.’ He said, ‘Yes, you do.’ I said, ‘Why?’”

“‘We want you to implement the vision that you set out in your book,’” Riggs recalled. “And that was the beginning of NCLOW.”

After the visit, representatives from the Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science at North Carolina State University provided funding for Riggs to create the North Carolina Land of Water, or NCLOW. The nonprofit is “dedicated to advancing coastal science, education, and community stewardship through research, outreach, and partnerships,” while working to ensure that the state’s coastal systems are “understood and safeguarded,” according to a press release.

In October, NCLOW announced the appointment of Stanton Blakeslee to its board of directors to guide the nonprofit’s future projects and fundraising. As noted in the release, the appointment “comes at a critical inflection point for the organization,” and his leadership will encourage “strategic investment and cross-sector innovation.”

Blakeslee, 55, who had attended ECU and worked for the N.C. Literary Review, is currently the president and CEO of Instigator Inc., a Greenville-based life science marketing firm. His experience includes investment in real estate development and consumer goods industries, and he serves as a member of the East Carolina Angels, an angel investment network.

So far, he has helped Riggs divide his approach to NCLOW in two phases, Blakeslee said. 

“Phase one culminated with the development of the books,” he said. “It was a way for Stan to formalize not only his life’s work, but what he sees as a sustainable future for the coast.” 

Blakeslee’s background as an entrepreneur who understands private equity and venture capital as well as conservation work provides insight into the goals of NCLOW, he explained.

“So the more I started to hear about what he was envisioning, I was like, ‘Oh, wow. So there’s like an economic concept behind everything that you’re trying to do here.’ We’re not trying to stay off the coast. What we’re saying is let’s look at where the opportunities are and invest …  so we can sustain this resource for everyone.”

Riggs’ earlier work with the Bertie County and Scuppernong River projects are two big success stories that drive NCLOW’s future initiatives, Blakeslee added. By harnessing creative ideas to manage and maintain the natural resources, a community’s economy and sustainability can benefit. For example, Windsor, Bertie’s county seat, mitigated flooding risk by requesting the water in a river dam be released slowly about a week before a predicted storm. And the community constructed tree houses above the river’s edge to rent, which quickly became a popular ecotourism attraction.

“The geographic setting of Bertie County provides a prime basis to capitalize on the incredible water system it has been blessed with,” Riggs wrote in his 2018 report, “From Rivers to Sounds in the Bertie Water Crescent” that proposed an approach to ecotourism and environmental education. “Consequently, NCLOW recommends developing a series of five educational and recreational ‘water hubs’ for ecotourism development.”

NCLOW can serve as a catalyst for other communities to take active steps towards sustainability, Blakeslee said. It’s a matter of determining the challenges, how to address them, and how to transform them into economic opportunities.

“I think Stan proved a lot of that in its first 10 years,” he said. “And now we’re looking at what the next 10 years, and possibly 20 years, looks like.”

Over his long career, Riggs, professor emeritus at ECU, has authored or co-authored 16 books and more than 100 journal articles.  But data-heavy research terminology and scientific jargon is a heavy lift for nonscientist readers, Riggs noted, and he believes that educating people about the science in their lives is a critical responsibility so people can understand the processes and relevant public policies that affect their lives.

“You know, when I was at the university, I got all my salary and everything was public funds, and all my research came from public organizations,” he said. “And so I see this as a give-back. It’s one thing to go out there and do a project and raise money and write your technical papers. But nobody in the public domain will ever, ever, read a technical paper.”

Riggs said he decided to write the Cape Lookout book because it is a success story. The undeveloped barrier island showcases how natural beaches recover, adapt and rebuilt after storms because over wash and other coastal processes are not blocked by infrastructure.

With an affable, every-man persona and an uncanny ability to recite minutia about ancient and ongoing geologic processes at seemingly every location he encounters, Riggs has spent considerable time traveling throughout the coastal region talking to residents and politicians in small communities, many of which are stressed by poverty, job losses and frequent flooding. 

As described in “The Battle for the North Carolina Coast,” the “Land of Water” coastal system in northeastern North Carolina includes a huge “drowned-river” estuarine system that encompasses vast shorelines, marsh, swamp forest wetlands, pocosin swamps, Carolina bays and blackwater streams.

“The natural resources that constitute this “Land of Water” can play an increasingly important role in the tourist economy, a role that would revitalize the region … build on the natural and human history and the dynamic coastal resources of northeastern North Carolina within an overarching and integrated umbrella program for sustainable, water-based ecotourism,” the book said.

And indeed, much of the land in northeastern North Carolina, from ocean beaches to river shorelines, from farmlands to forests, is surrounded by a body, or several bodies, of water. The Albemarle-Pamlico estuary is the second largest in the country, behind Chesapeake.

Although still rich with wildlife and natural resources, the low-lying region, some just inches above sea level, is becoming more threatened by impacts of climate change and rising seas: increased flooding, saltwater intrusion, stormwater inundation, shoreline erosion, ocean overwash and storm surge.

“The way I think about this is, you better understand the dynamics of our planet,” Riggs said. “That doesn’t mean that you have to be a scientist. It means you have to know something about water. You have to know something about land. And that comes down to the problem of education.”

That is, people, as a society, need to understand that how and where there is growth and development cannot be unlimited or driven by profit. 

Riggs says he’s had the benefit of learning over the decades from numerous other “incredible” scientists with whom he has worked together in teams, sharing spaces in classrooms and research ships. He has spent years warning about the futility of trying to control destructive natural forces, whether or not people believe they’re created by man-made causes such as burning fossil fuels. On the coast, sea walls, sandbags, and jetties ultimately make things worse by increasing erosion and will ultimately fail anyway, he has preached.

But as nightmare damages from storms, such as the recent deadly flooding in the mountains from Hurricane Helene, have increased, he said he’s noticed that people are starting to listen; they’ve realized that climate conditions are not the same as they were in the old days.

“There’s nothing wrong with the history and and yes, we can respect the history, but the history includes change,” he said.  “We better understand how rivers (and oceans) work, and if we don’t understand that, there will be human disasters. The more we politically ignore the science, the bigger the human disasters.”

Next in the series: “Cape Lookout National Seashore, Paradigm for a Coastal System Ethic”: An excerpt.