There is a lot to a beautiful sand dune

MILTON, FL - At first glance, sand dunes seem to be nothing but beautiful accessories to white, sandy beaches, but when hurricanes roll in, they take on an entirely different roll.

Riley Hoggard, the natural resource specialist at Gulf Islands National Seashore, said that sand dunes are especially important on barrier islands like Santa Rosa Island.

A barrier island is the first piece of land that separates the mainland from the Gulf of Mexico and takes the brunt of a hurricane.

Sand dunes on these barrier islands are essential to the protection of the mainland and structures on the island.

"If you have a series of dunes in front of your place when the storm waters come up, the water has to go in between the dunes," Hoggard said. "As it snakes around on the ground, it loses most of its power."

However, most of these dunes are wiped out during hurricanes, thereby leaving the mainland largely unprotected.             

For this reason, the sand dunes are constantly in need of restoration, but it involves much more than simply pushing up a mound of dirt.

Because sand alone can be blown away by the wind, it is important to give it some sort of anchor.

The secret to building up a sand dune is vegetation.

"We like to call grasses the biological engineers of dunes," said Debbie Miller, an associate professor of wildlife ecology and conservation at the University of Florida Milton Campus.

Miller said that at Gulf Islands National Seashore they try to build up the dunes as naturally as possible.

Hoggard said that the first step in the dune restoration process is to determine the natural dune location and back up 50 to 100 feet.

If the dunes are restored too close to the water, they stand little chance of growth and could even cause additional erosion to the beaches.

They then plant various types of vegetation in patches. If they are in the right place they grow a dune.

Miller said that the plants most often used for dune restoration are sea oats, bitter panicum and beach elder.

"There are very few grasses that can grow out there and keep up with being buried by sand," Miller said.

These plants are perfect for the job because they can live in the beach habitat but also require very little maintenance.

If the dunes are successful, Hoggard said that they can grow up to a foot and a half each year.

Eagle Scouts, Sunday school groups, and other members of the community usually help out with planting sea oats.

Wendy Ochs, the director of Sunday school and youth programs at Temple Beth-El, located at located at 800 North Palafox St., often takes groups of children and families from her community to help out.

The group goes out every year to plant sea oats for two hours on Tu B'Shevat, a Jewish holiday that focuses on conservation and saving the planet.

"It is wonderful for the kids to do something to help out at a place where they have fun," Ochs said.

Sand dune conservation is an important issue especially in areas so often hit by extreme storms.

"The most significant role sand dunes play is providing elevation to the island," said Hoggard. "If you didn't have the dunes then you wouldn't have that repository of sand, and if you didn't have enough sand on the island, it could easily become just a submerged sandbar."