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Source: Lake Michigan coastline erosion research brings in new data and diplomacy | Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant The town of Beverly Shores includes part of the Indiana Dunes National Park. (Photo credit: David Mark, Pixabay) The record high Lake Michigan water levels in 2020 were even more dramatic if you consider that the lake had near record low levels as recent as 2013. “That’s a lot of pressure on the shoreline,” said Cary Troy, Purdue University civil engineer. “There’s really no precedent in terms of ocean coastlines for what the Great Lakes are going through related to water level fluctuations.” In addition to lake levels, beaches are impacted by large storms and barriers, piers, and other human interventions. Troy is part of a sweeping study funded through Illinois-Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin Sea Grant programs to assess Lake Michigan coastal erosion levels, causes, and management options from physical, social and community perspectives. The two-year project that began in 2020 is led by Troy, Guy Meadows with Michigan Technological University and Chin Wu at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Miles Tryon-Petith, Chin Wu’s civil and environmental engineering Ph.D. student from UW-Madison is working on mounting the real-time camera to record bluff movement in Mequon, Wisc. (Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Sea Grant.) The research will focus on three coastal communities that offer the opportunity for scientists to track and measure erosion on different beach features—the bluffs at Concordia University in Wisconsin, the shoreline of South Haven, Michigan, and the dunes at Beverly Shores in Indiana. Part of the beach in the small town of Beverly Shores is in the Indiana Dunes National Park—there, the research team can learn more about how nature responds to water level changes and storm events. Troy also wants to study coastal sites where people have added structures to the landscape. He’s [...]