**1. Editorial for the Special Issue Shoreline Dynamics and Beach Erosion**

The coastal zone is a unique physical space including the transition between the land and sea, whose surface area totals approximately 5% of the earth's surface [1]. However, this percentage and the related features change based on the definitions used and the related spatial boundaries attributed to them, which can vary depending on the way they are studied, exploited, and/or managed (e.g., [2]).

Although the coastal zone represents only a narrow strip of the Earth's surface, there is no doubt about its great socio-economic and ecological importance, as it provides a wide range of services of fundamental importance to human well-being, health, and subsistence [3–5]. The high socio-economic and strategic value of coastal areas explain why around two-thirds of the world's population live within 100 km from the coastline [6] and about 17% in low-elevation coastal zones, i.e., in low-lying areas that are less than 10 m above sea level [7,8]. In particular, sandy coasts are largely preferred as places for living and leisure activities, thus playing a fundamental role in the lucrative and growing tourism market, providing easy access to the sea [9,10].

From a dynamic perspective, the coastal zone represents one of the most energetic environments on Earth. Although the physical processes governing coastal dynamics show moderate and reasonably predictable behaviors most of the time, forcing processes can undergo unexpected abrupt and rapid changes leading to extreme and dangerous events. In particular, coastal storms, during which the wave energy reaches values significantly higher than those observed under average conditions, are among the most damaging

**Citation:** Di Paola, G.; Rodríguez, G.; Rosskopf, C.M. Shoreline Dynamics and Beach Erosion. *Geosciences* **2023**, *13*, 74. https://doi.org/10.3390/ geosciences13030074

Received: 19 January 2023 Accepted: 15 February 2023 Published: 7 March 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

1

natural events, primarily due to the high number of victims, but also to huge monetary losses (e.g., [11]).

The occurrence of storm events is particularly important along open, low-lying coastlines where beach erosion is one of the most common impacts, often causing the loss of land of high socio-economic and natural value (e.g., [10,12–14] and references therein). To succeed in planning and developing resilient and sustainable coastal built environments [15], it is crucial that coastal planners, engineers, and decision makers are aware of the fact that coastal areas are highly dynamic and hazard-prone zones.

In the light of the above, the progressive expansion of our knowledge on coastal morphodynamics and shoreline evolution and the modelling of shoreline changes and beach erosion in response to natural and anthropogenic stressors are of enormous relevance. Progress in this direction requires advances in various branches of science and technology, including techniques used for data acquisition, processing, and analysis, as well as the development of efficient numerical procedures for the computational implementation of theoretical models based on detailed studies and monitoring the activities of investigated coastal systems.
