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This textbook shows all the existing knowledge about coastal geology and its implications for coastal management. In the last decades, the geological sciences have been supplying exciting information about the coastal systems, not only from its dynamics but also providing a sedimentary concept to understand and interpret the preserved coastal stratigraphical record. Furthermore, recent investigations have been focused on the prevention of coastal hazards like storms, tsunamis, or sea-level fluctuation. This discipline has an increasing interest after the expanding human activities around the coasts worldwide. The present trend is that many of the problems raised by the coast–human interaction must be resolved by using the Integrated Coastal Zone Management.The chapters of this book have a double-level structure. The first part of each chapter contains the necessary information for undergraduate courses studying coastal geology. The second part includes advanced information and examples to be used by graduate students and novel professionals.

This monograph presents the state of art of the geologic knowledge about the Spanish coast obtained through scientific research in the last 30 years.From a general point of view, coasts are the most quickly changing systems of the Earth. This is critical, since many human resources, such as the main part of economic and social activities, are located in the coastal areas. Especially in the case of Spain these coasts include cities, wide industrial areas (including harbor complexes), important ecologic systems, and our main economic resource: tourism. Understanding the dynamic functioning of each element of this coast is vital for correct future coastal management, so as to solve problems derived from bad plans developed in the last decades of the twentieth century.This is a valuable text for advanced graduate students and coastal researchers, which connects the specific dynamic functioning of the main Spanish coastal environments and their relationships with human activities.