The boat traffic associated with the accelerating urbanization of coastal areas has a significant impact on the health of coastal ecosystems. In otherwise typically quiescent intracoastal and estuarine waterways, the transient wave activity created by boat traffic generates intermittent bursts of higher flow velocities, accelerations, and stresses on the bed, vegetation, and both bivalve and coral reefs. Although boat wakes may have relatively small heights in deep water, they grow, steepen, and break as they shoal on sloping banks/beaches

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