INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COASTAL & OFFSHORE ENGINEERING IJCOE Vol.4/No. 3/Fall 2020 (23-33) Available online at: www. Ijcoe.org The effect of Caspian Sea level rise on the environment of the sand dunes of Mazandaran, Iran Homayoun Khoshravan 1, Tahereh Alinejadtabrizi 2*, Alireza Naqinezhad 3, Samereh 4 Tirgan 1 Water research institute, ministry of Energy;
[email protected] 2*Department of Environmental Engineering, Graduate Faculty of Environment, University of Tehran;
[email protected] 3Department of Biology, Faculty of Basic Sciences, University of Mazandaran;
[email protected] 4Department of Biology, Faculty of Basic Sciences, University of Mazandaran;
[email protected] ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article History: Sand dunes are crucial factors related to stability of the coasts, and vegetation plays Received: 01 Dec. 2020 a decisive role in their creation. In this research paper, analyzing the effects of the Accepted: 24 Jan. 2021 Caspian Sea level fluctuations and human intervention on transformation of habitats Keywords: and biodiversity of coastal plants on sand dunes is assumed as the main goal. The Caspian Sea morphological structure of coastal sand dunes and the biodiversity of their plant sand dunes species were investigated by selecting 11 transects in the eastern coast of the central fluctuation erosion Mazandaran (Babolsar-Amirabad), also the major changes of the sand dunes in environment coastal lands were evaluated during the period of the Caspian Sea water level rise, 1978-1995, using the remote sensing. The results showed that coastal dunes in the southern coasts of the Caspian Sea are divided into three groups, intact or healthy, semi-healthy and completely destructed.