Homayoun Khoshravan , Seidmasoumeh Banihashemi , Mahdieh Shapouri

Coastal Management Group, Caspian Sea Research Center, Water Research Institute, Sari, Mazandaran, Iran
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2013, Vol. 3, No. 22   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0022
Received: 30 Mar., 2013    Accepted: 26 Apr., 2013    Published: 26 Apr., 2013

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Khoshravan et al., 2013, Temporal and Spatial Variation of Sand Dunes, the Caspian Sea, International Journal of Marine Science, Vol.3, No.22 173-177 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2013.03.0022)

The evaluation of temporal and spatial changes of sand dunes in the southern coasts of the Caspian Sea is the main target in this research. So with periodic satellite images interpretation and field monitoring on beach zone, the physical condition of sand dunes morphology was examined. The results show that from 865 km coastal stripe in the southern coasts of the Caspian Sea there is just 156 kilometers discontinuously sand dunes and the beach zone of the western part of Mazandaran and Gilan and also Golestan province are the most susceptible regions from erosion point of view. There is only 45 kilometers pristine and untouched sand dune along the study area which was located in Miankaleh territory. The results show that the varieties of sand dunes along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea are different. Tendency of erosion vulnerability of these sand dunes have been increased by anthropogenic impact and rapid sea level changes, particularly near Amirabad complex zone in south-east coasts of the Caspian Sea. 

Sand dune; Coast; Caspian Sea; Vulnerability; Erosion