DESC: With The Nature of North Carolina's Southern Coast, Dirk Frankenberg's effort to provide a comprehensive field guide to the state's dynamic shoreline is complete. Picking up where his 1995 book The Nature of the Outer Banks left off, this book covers the coastal region from Ocracoke Inlet to the South Carolina border. Along the way, it provides a close-up look at the area's natural environment, highlighting the processes that have shaped, and continue to shape, North Carolina's southern coast. The book guides the reader to more than fifty different natural areas-including barrier islands, coastal waters, estuaries, wetlands, and forests -- that have been preserved along 180 miles of coastline. Drawings, maps, and photographs amplify the text, aid in identifying common plants, and illustrate the local natural communities. In a final section, the author explores the effects of human land use on coastal areas, calling attention to a number of current environmental threats and discussing ways in which these iss