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1500 2000 2500 



ISLAND WIDTH, M 



Figure 53. Sound shoreline changes from about 1850 to 1980, Cape Henry to 

 Cape Hatteras, as a function of island width in 1980 (shoreline changes 



are shown in Figure 34) 



Inlets and shore erosion 



109. Inlets affect both sides of a barrier island or spit and have had 

 a major impact on shoreline behavior in the study area. Shoreline changes 

 that have occurred as a result of open inlets during the 130-year period of 

 this study provide a basis to extrapolate shoreline changes caused by inlet 

 processes backward in time to 1585 (Figure 9) and earlier. In some cases the 

 effect of an inlet on adjacent shorelines is only one of a number of causes 

 of the change in those shores. 



110. Present inlets. Rudee Inlet, one of the two inlets presently open 

 in the study area, is a small and stabilized feature that has only a small 

 effect on adjacent shorelines; the recent history of Rudee Inlet is listed in 

 Table 2. Oregon Inlet, unstabilized and many times larger than Rudee, is the 

 only inlet that has been open continuously for the length of the study period. 

 Since it opened just 4 years before the first shoreline survey was made, the 

 survey data presented in this paper provide an excellent sequence with which 

 to detail the inlet's behavior. 



111. Oregon Inlet today is flanked by erosional ocean shorelines for 

 about 8 km on either side of the inlet throat (Figures 28 and 31). Shore 

 erosion, which is greatest near the inlet, decreases as distance from the 



99 



