News Release

LSU researcher receives NSF grant to study dune blowouts in Cape Cod

Patrick Hesp, chair of LSU's Department of Geography and Anthropology, awarded 3 years of support

Grant and Award Announcement

Louisiana State University

BATON ROUGE – Patrick Hesp, chair of LSU's Department of Geography and Anthropology and an expert on coastal dune dynamics and geomorphology, has been awarded a collaborative grant totaling $440,000 from the National Science Foundation, to study blowout dynamics in Cape Cod, Mass. The study holds implications for climate change, as these dunes are relatively unstudied and many climate models predict a drier, more arid future. It could also deliver insight into how these landforms develop on other planets.

The three-year project, titled "Blowout Dynamics at Cape Cod," brings Hesp together with Ian Walker of the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, and Paul Gares in the Department of Geography at East Carolina University.

Blowouts are saucer-, bowl- and trough-shaped landforms naturally eroded or "blown out" by the wind, often because there has been a reduction in the area's vegetation cover. Human activity, including tourism and overcrowding on coastal dunes and overgrazing in desert and semi-arid regions also commonly leads to blowout development.

"Extremely little research has been carried out on blowouts anywhere in the world," Hesp said, "yet they are present in all sandy landscapes, from deserts to coasts, and are the most common landform that develops when the climate gets drier, hotter and /or more windy. Since many climate change models predict that the climate will change towards more drier and windier conditions in some countries, the research will have important implications for how the landscape may change. It will also help us explain features on Mars and other planets and moons."

Hesp and the research group will conduct an analysis of aerial photography of the area from the 1940s to present to examine dune blowout initiation and rates of change. This data will then be compared to any long-term climate data to investigate the role of climate in blowout initiation and development. Hesp and colleagues also have a range of sophisticated anemometers and ground-based lidar equipment to measure wind speeds and direction, sand transport and surface change in a suite of different size blowouts. They will also fund several graduate students in the project

The research will improve scientists' understanding of the relationships between climate change and blowout genesis, and will provide a better understanding of how dunes might respond to climate change. Results will assist management agencies such as national parks facilitate the development of tools to manage coastlines, especially in regions experiencing erosion and sea level rise. Results will also be disseminated to the public via a series of posters and booklet on dunes and their evolution, ecology and their value.

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