Unlike many coastal beach systems where a defined storm ridge or dune line protects against periodic high water, the fairly even backshore slope in Iqaluit produces incremental landward incursion of floodwater.
In these areas some critical infrastructure is found in the backshore, and numerous subsistence-support resources (sheds, sea cans [shipping containers], boats, motors, skidoos, qamutiqs, and other equipment) are concentrated on the uppermost part of the beach.
Risk to the subsistence infrastructure is rooted in the expansion of urban development into the backshore zone, which has left limited space for hunters and fishers, who need to locate on land with direct access to the sea.
This study has shown that for an observed extreme high water event added to a plausible upper limit of the most recent projections of sea level for 2100 (0.7 m above the 2010 mean sea level), 50% of the infrastructure within the coastal "open space" planning zone would be affected, and significant areas of land would be flooded in the developed backshore.
There was no seasonal variation in dominance among seasons in the backshore zone at Site 1.
There was never more than three species present in the backshore zone at Site 2 and in Spring 2005 only two species were present (Table 4).
These three species were also present in the top five species in each season in the backshore zone at Site 1.
(1977) reported species richness, percent cover and species importance in the backshore and primary dune zones of South Padre Island based on 18 transects taken at 3.2 km intervals along the length of the island.
Seasonal variation in dominance in the backshore and primary dune zones at Site 2 appears to reflect differences in response to cold by railroad vine and beach croton.