Coastal Change at Fire Island, NY: Influences of Storms, Geology and People

Fire Island is a barrier island along the south shore of Long Island, NY. The majority of the island falls within the boundaries of Fire Island National Seashore which is managed by the National Park Service (NPS), and the island is a popular New York tourist destination. Seventeen private communities are situated within the boundaries of the park and are interspersed with park lands, including a federally-protected Wilderness Area. USGS colleagues and myself had a long history of conducting research on the Fire Island barrier island and the adjacent inner continental shelf. The studies yielded a wealth of knowledge about the geology of the region as well as the formation, evolution and continuing response of the barrier island. The most recent research focused on understanding how the geologic variability of the coastal system controls the behavior of the barrier island on a variety of time scales – storms to centuries.

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