The shingle, strandline and sand-dune communities of the NVC were described in Volume 5 of
British Plant Communities, first published in 2000, along with the other maritime communities (those of
saltmarshes and
maritime cliffs) and
vegetation of open habitats. In total, 19 shingle, strandline and sand-dune communities have been identified. The shingle, strandline and sand-dune communities consist of a single community found on coastal shingle (
SD1), two communities associated with strandlines (
SD2 and
SD3), and sixteen sand-dune communities. The sand-dune communities fall into the following four groups: • six foredune and mobile dune communities (
SD4,
SD5,
SD6,
SD7,
SD10 and
SD19) • four fixed-dune grasslands (
SD8,
SD9,
SD11 and
SD12) • five dune-slack communities (
SD13,
SD14,
SD15,
SD16 and
SD17) • one dune scrub community,
SD18 Other communities occurring on sand-dunes There are a number of other communities which occur on sand-dunes, but are not classified as sand-dune communities within the NVC. Those listed in
British Plant Communities are as follows: • Maritime cliff communities
MC5 and
MC6 • Open vegetation communities
OV4 and
OV27 • Mesotrophic grassland communities
MG8,
MG10 and
MG11 • Swamp communities
S4 and
S19 • Mire communities
M15 and
M16 • Heath community
H11 ==List of shingle, strandline and sand-dune communities==