The connection between the movie "Dune: Part Two" and Oregon invites fans to explore the writings of Frank Herbert, ecological principles and the shifting dune environments along the coast. And, if you do happen to explore these dunes on foot, just remember to not make your steps regular.
Frank Herbert (1920-1986), author of "Dune" and its five sequels, was once a newspaper journalist. While working on a magazine story about the conflicts between shifting sand dunes in the Oregon Dunes near Florence, and the dune's impacts on roads, railroad tracks and even homes, Herbert did a deep dive into the ecological aspects of this "human vs nature" arena. Although he never published the article, these concepts formed the makeup of the harsh landscape of Arrakis in his 1965 sci-fi novel, "Dune."
As Herbert explored the dunes near Florence in 1957, he viewed projects undertaken as far back as the 1920s to control the moving sands. European beach grass and shrubs were planted in the dunes to stabilize the sands and transform the bleak dunes into lush oasis. For Herbert, this "terraforming" process influenced the work of the inhabitants of Arrakis, the Fremen, in their attempts to transform their planet back into the lush world it once was.
The recent release of "Dune: Part Two" captures the stunning beauty of Arrakis with its fascinating dune environments which provide habitat for giant sandworms. Like Arrakis, minus the sandworms, the shifting sand environments along the Oregon coast also reveal that the dunes can't be entirely controlled by human intervention.
Though the story of Arrakis lives on, where does dune management stand today on the Oregon Coast?
"Several communities in Oregon have Dune Management Plans in place to deal with issues of sand inundation, view grading and vegetation planting," said Peter Ruggiero, a professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. Ruggiero and Sally Hacker, a professor in OSU's Department of Integrative Biology, have studied dunes and dune morphology on the coast for nearly 20 years. Several different management actions are the primary drivers of these plans.
"The three major management strategies are: let the dunes grow high and tall with the invasive grasses, which has benefits for protection from storm impacts; undertake dune restoration practices for native Western Snowy Plover habitat or manage the dunes for sand inundation and for views," said Meagan Wengrove, assistant professor of coastal engineering at OSU. This may include grading the dunes to enhance ocean views but in turn, this reduces the protective capacity of the dune in terms of storms or tidal waves.
"There have been restoration projects over the last 20 years to restore the original more shifting sand environment for the promotion of Western snowy plover breeding habitat, which is an ESA [Endangered Species Act] listed threatened species," said Hacker. "These projects involve bulldozing the large hills of sand created by the beachgrasses to a lower elevation and then keeping the grasses in check with further bulldozing and spraying of the grasses with herbicides, at some sites." These restoration projects take place on public lands managed by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, U.S. Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management.
Depending upon the management strategy, this in turn dictates if municipalities, homeowners, or state or federal agencies are involved in the permitting process. "I don't think that there are any communities that are actually incorporating dune management into their infrastructure designs, but rather they are considering how the dunes affect their infrastructure," said Wengrove. "However, Cannon Beach, who used to grade their dunes for views, recently changed their dune management plan to disallow dune grading because they felt that dune grading only benefited the beach front property owner and not anyone else."
All dunes are not created equal. "There is a pretty big difference in the sand capture and dune building of the non-native beachgrasses and the native plants (grasses and forbs)," said Sally Hacker, professor in OSU's Department of Integrative Biology. "The non-native grasses build taller and wider dunes than the native vegetation, which build shorter and more hummocky dunes with areas of shifting sand." Between the two non-native beachgrasses, one (European beachgrass) builds taller and narrower dunes compared to the other non-native grass (American beachgrass) that builds shorter and wider dunes."
Wengrove, Hacker and Ruggiero are just finishing up "A Guidebook for Oregon Coastal Dune Management" that incorporates dune management research into one useful compendium for coastal communities. "We believe that this will be a resource for some of these contentious conversations that are had around coastal dunes in Oregon," added Wengrove.
Those coastal communities might also want to pick up a copy of "Dune" to supplement their decision making.
