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Two centuries of coastal change at Caesarea, Israel: natural processes vs. human intervention

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Abstract

The coast at Caesarea, Israel, has been inhabited almost continuously for the last 2,400 years, and the archeological sites are today a major international tourist attraction. Because the sites straddle the shoreline, they are subject to constant damage by wave action, and must therefore be frequently restored. In this paper, local shoreline migrations over the last 200 years are investigated with the aim of distinguishing between natural and man-made coastal changes. In order to assess these changes accurately, geomorphological and sedimentological data were examined based on detailed beach profile measurements, bathymetric surveys, and grain-size analyses. In addition, series of old aerial photographs, as well as historical topographic maps and nautical charts were consulted. The results show that shoreline changes can be grouped into two main time periods. During the first period from 1862 to 1949 before the expansion of modern settlements, the position of the shoreline changed irregularly by up to 30 m. In the second period from 1949 onward, numerous coastal structures have been erected, and various coastal modifications have been carried out. The evaluation of the data suggests that human interventions have had relatively little effect on the overall position of the shoreline, as displacements ranged only from 5 to 18 m. Thus, coastal changes at Caesarea are predominantly due to natural wave action reflected in the heterogeneous geomorphological and sedimentological characteristics of the shore. This contradicts the common assumption that human activities are always mainly responsible for large-scale shoreline modifications in the region. It is concluded that, in order to implement meaningful mitigating countermeasures, coastal archeological sites need to be individually assessed with respect to the dominant factors causing local coastal change.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge support from the Sir Maurice and Lady Hatter Fund of the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies (RIMS), University of Haifa. Many thanks are due to Amir Yurman, head of the RIMS marine workshop, and Moshe Bachar, marine operations technician, for their assistance in the measurements, as well as Noga Yoselevich for help with the figures. Also acknowledged are four reviewers for useful comments on an earlier and the present version of the article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Maritime Civilizations, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 3190501, Israel

    Gilad Shtienberg & Dorit Sivan

  2. Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 3190501, Israel

    Dov Zviely

  3. Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 3190501, Israel

    Dorit Sivan

  4. Dr. Moses Strauss Department of Marine Geosciences, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 3190501, Israel

    Michael Lazar

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  1. Gilad Shtienberg
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Correspondence to Gilad Shtienberg.

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Shtienberg, G., Zviely, D., Sivan, D. et al. Two centuries of coastal change at Caesarea, Israel: natural processes vs. human intervention. Geo-Mar Lett 34, 365–379 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00367-014-0355-5

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