The purpose of this book is two-fold. The first is to stake the claim formally and authoritatively that we have entered the technological era of surfing. Though this discussion receives little attention, the argument suggests that the most significant differentiating characteristic of the modern surf era is the common acceptance of new technological inputs and the feverous pace at which the surf industry accelerates and extends the technological arsenal available to surfers.

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From the time before Captain Cook and his crew first gazed up people surfing in Polynesia in 1778, it was the embodiment of human spiritual and cultural interconnection with nature. Boards were wooden and surfers would glide on waves that came from mysterious and divine sources. Even after the sport was appropriated by Westerners in the early 20th century, it remained stripped-down and agnostic to all but the most subtle technological advances. After WWII, this all changed. Material technology and climactic science seeped into surf culture and the emergence of a capitalist world order ensured a ready supply of capital for increasing productivity, efficiency, and profitability in multiple spheres of the surf world.

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There are now roughly 30 million surfers in the world (growing at least 15% per year), and they spend $65 Billion USD per year traveling internationally for the primary purpose of surfing waves. This level of demand is facilitating some big technological changes that have received very little dedicated attention. This book seeks to address this gap in an entertaining way that will spark new avenues of discussion and research.

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Nowadays, engineers are creating surfable waves in oceans in places where they did not exist before, while others are not even bothering with the ocean, and are making commercially viable surf pools in deserts. Surf forecasts are precise and surf checks are done on computer and phone screens, as surfers watch live camera feeds pointed at thousands (and counting) surf-breaks around the world. The concomitant impacts of sea-level rise and coastal engineering solutions to save infrastructure from this, are inadvertently erasing surf-breaks, at the same time plastic and other pollution (including nuclear waste) accelerates and aggregates in our oceans where people surf. The lion’s share of high-tech applications into surfing equipment (i.e., boards and wetsuits) are largely toxic with underexplored impacts on ecosystem and human health. Surfers can also travel as tourists to ever increasing locations around the world, while governments and entrepreneurs continue to invest in the infrastructure to facilitate this occurring with even greater ease – even if this infrastructure also threatens the viability of surf resources and enhances over visitation. In short, it is a brave new world we surfers now find ourselves in.

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This book argues, it is time to step back and ask: what does it mean to surf in the Anthropocene Ocean? In what ways is technology improving or diminishing our experiences as surfers and the environments where we participate in surfing? Only when this dialogue occurs can we begin to understand technology in its present tense before considering what kind of future we can, or want to create for future generations of surfers.

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Once highlighting the current state of how technology, environment, and society (TES) interactions have moulded the current technological era in surfing, the second aim will be to ponder the direction this is heading, and what surfers, scholars, and policymakers may have at their disposal to steer technological change, rather than be steered by it.

Each author will be an expert in a topic area they will address in their chapter. Each chapter will follow a similar structure either addressing a particular issue (e.g., sea-level rise, shark encounters, pollution etc.,) or technology (e.g., surf cameras, wetsuits, wave pools etc.,):

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1. The history of how certain TES interrelations have led to the current state of their issue or technology in the technological era.

2. Discuss the direction these technological advances seem to be heading in surfing related to the issue or technology their chapter will focus upon. This may have them pose what they see as the potential best (utopian), worst-case scenarios (Mad Max), and most likely future scenarios based on the best possible evidence available and their expertise on the issue or technology.

3. Authors’ will then provide a conclusion with their perspective on what might or ought to be done to steer technology in a direction for providing more sustainable future outcomes, both for surfer well-being and the environments where surfing take places.

 

The novel contributions this book will make:

1. There is no dedicated work to the future of surfing, nor one that focuses on the technologies that are growing in importance to surfing. This will be the first.

2. This will be the first volume dedicated to surfing in the Anthropocene Ocean, which will be evocative considering many wish to pretend that surfing can remain outside of these earth altering forces.

3. Top scholars and practitioners in each of these fields will be expounding on these topics in a creative and entertaining way that will appeal to scholars, students, and the public. It will also be the first volume in surf studies where technological advance is questioned and we ponder how it might be effectively steered towards achieving greater surfer well-being and environmental health.