An historical ecological assessment of land-use evolution and observed landscape change in an arid aeolian sedimentary system.

Coastal areas worldwide are undergoing major changes and degradation due to a set of combined natural and anthropogenic stressors. In arid aeolian sedimentary systems these changes can be even more acute given their sensitivity to perturbances in landscape dynamics. While in many such areas recent (20 year) observations have been made regarding measurable differences in dune coverage and stability, few studies have assessed and quantified the long-term relationships of transitioning exploitation and land-use changes in order to fully evaluate their importance.