Coastal lagoons are transitional aquatic systems that mediate transfers between the terrestrial environment and the ocean, including potential environmental stressors . Lagoons are an evolving coastal landform that may go through a cycle from an open embayment, to a partially back-barrier lagoon with progressive infilling, to a segmentation into small lagoons with unstable inlets and then lakes  (Fig 1A). The evolution of coastal lagoons is the result of the balance between the processes which act to reduce the size of a lagoon and those, which act to increase it . For a given lagoon status, the combination of rate of accretion and sea rise will determine the volumetric capacity of the lagoon, its import/export status, and the resultant evolution . The relative importance of a particular process in a lagoon depends upon the environmental setting in which the lagoon is located and the evolutionary path followed by a lagoon depends upon the magnitude and relative importance of each of the operative processes . The dynamism of these forces promotes both long-term and short-term changes in these ecosystems. In the long-term (months and years), it influences the connectivity with the sea, while in the short-term (tidal cycles), it affects the amount of seawater inflow. According to the present connectivity with the sea, these coastal water bodies can roughly be divided into three major types: open (permanently connected to the sea), the intermittently open/closed (which includes seasonally or non-seasonally closed or those normally closed), and the closed (presently without permanent open bar, the coastal lakes).