Historical monitoring along Mustang and north Padre Islands records the nature and magnitude of changes in position of the shoreline and vegetation line and provides insight into the factors affecting those changes.

Surface mining, with its accompanying dust, noise, truck traffic, and land disruption, generally conflicts with most urban land uses. Urban development, however, is dependent upon the availability of nearby mineral resources for the construction of roads and buildings. As a result of this conflict, many urban areas are now faced with rapidly rising construction costs, partly because of a failure to recognize and use aggregate resources before building over such resources or making them unavailable by zoning.