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Geomorphology and Dynamics of the Aegean Coasts

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The Aegean Sea Environment

Part of the book series: The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry ((HEC,volume 127))

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Abstract

The coastline of the Aegean Sea has a length of about 13,660 km, which belongs to Greece by 78.6% and to Turkey by 21.4%. The Greek coasts consist of hard rocks (43.0%), soft rocks (47.8%), and non-cohesive sediments (9.3%). Most depositional coasts are located in the northern Aegean, where relatively large rivers form extended deltas. At the same time, numerous small beaches (<1 km long) are situated between the rocky promontories of the eastern and northeastern islands. About 28% of the coastline is subject to erosion, with an average retreat rate of 0.3–0.5 m year−1. As sea levels are expected to rise in the coming years due to climate change, immediate action must be taken to increase the resilience of low-slope beaches.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the support of this work by the project “DRESSAGE” (MIS 5045792) which is implemented under the action “Enhancement of the Research and Innovation Infrastructure,” funded by the Operational Program “Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation” (NSRF 2014-2020) and co-financed by Greece and the European Union (ERDF).

The authors would like to thank also Vassilis Saltagiannis for his contribution concerning the figures of this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Oceanography, Anavyssos, Greece

    Vandarakis Dimitrios, Petrakis Stelios, Malliouri Dimitra, Hatiris Georgios-Angelos, Moraitis Vyron, Kikaki Katerina, Anagnostou Christos & Kapsimalis Vasilios

  2. Faculty of Geology and Geoenvironment, School of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Zografou, Greece

    Poulos Serafeim & Karditsa Aikaterini

  3. Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, Institute of Applied and Computational Mathematics, Coastal and Marine Research Laboratory, Crete, Greece

    Alexandrakis George

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  1. Vandarakis Dimitrios
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Correspondence to Vandarakis Dimitrios .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), Institute of Oceanography, Athens, Greece

    Christos L. Anagnostou

  2. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, S.Yu. Witte Moscow University, Moscow, Russia

    Andrey G. Kostianoy

  3. Department of Geology & Geoenvironment, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Ilias D. Mariolakos

  4. Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR), Institute of Oceanography, Athens, Greece

    Panayotis Panayotidis

  5. Academy of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Marina Soilemezidou

  6. Panteion University of Social and Political Science, Athens, Greece

    Grigoris Tsaltas

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Dimitrios, V. et al. (2023). Geomorphology and Dynamics of the Aegean Coasts. In: Anagnostou, C.L., Kostianoy, A.G., Mariolakos, I.D., Panayotidis, P., Soilemezidou, M., Tsaltas, G. (eds) The Aegean Sea Environment. The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry, vol 127. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2023_1061

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