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Fiji
Encyclopedia entry   Peer reviewed

Fiji

Patrick Nunn
Encyclopedia of the World's Coastal Landforms, pp.1437-1450
Springer Netherlands
2010
url
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8639-7_247View
Published Version

Abstract

Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Fiji
The Fiji Islands are composed of a group of some 350 islands (around 90 inhabited) in the tropical southwest Pacific. The character of particular coasts depends on several factors, including aspect, island geology and lithology, island size (particularly whether large rivers are present or not), island tectonics, and offshore coral-reef configuration (important for the supply of calcareous sediment). Add to these natural factors a highly variable degree of human impact, ranging from the negligible on sparsely inhabited islands to the severe along coasts which have been intensely developed for tourism, for example, and you find an almost bewildering diversity of coasts and coastal dynamics which make coastal management very challenging. This chapter looks at each of the above-mentioned factors, with examples given, before going on to a systematic account of the Fiji coastline.

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