Wind transports particles by creep, saltation and suspension, of which saltation dominates and is responsible for aeolian landforms. Transported particles generally must go around objects, so that the connectivity defined by the spatial distribution of objects on the surface controls sediment transport. Four spatial and temporal scales of sediment transport are defined. At gap to patch scales, vegetation typically defines the structural connectivity. Vegetation remains important at landscape to basin scales but geomorphic features also contribute to defining transport corridors, or structural connectivity, at the coarsest scale. Patterns of aeolian transport through time are essentially constrained by structural connectivity at multiple, embedded scales. Functional connectivity is not well developed in the aeolian realm and, because particles do not travel more than one or two saltation hops during a single event, functional connectivity is only a relevant concept at the finest spatial scales. Aeolian transport must be approached from the multiple spatial (gap to basin) and temporal (single event to longer periods) scales that define structural and functional connectivity.

Coastal rivers and deltas provide important ecosystem services, are hot spots of energy and food production and host hundreds of millions of people. These geomorphic features possess a wide range of spatial and temporal scales that need to be accounted for when analyzing the form of these systems. This form can be characterized by three types of connectivity: structural, functional, and process connectivity. Structural connectivity is driven by the physical adjacency of topographic elements; functional connectivity pertains to the transport processes that control the magnitude and directionality of fluxes of water, solutes, and solids across coastal landscapes, and process connectivity captures the variables and their interactions that define the system’s state. Connectivity and/or the lack thereof in coastal landscapes control the functioning of these systems; as such connectivity is a helpful framework that captures the structure, dynamics, and responses of coastal landscapes under future scenarios of climate and anthropogenic modifications so that these systems can be studied and restoration interventions optimally informed.