Coastal Landscapes - Coastal Management Policy Decisions

Important Coastal Management Questions:
  1. Do we have to hold the line? e.g Hard Engineering
  2. What is a suitable defence?; what are the options?
  3. How much will the loss be compared to the cost? CBA (cost-benefit analyse)
  4. Who is involved/affected?
  5. What will the knock-off effects be?
  6. Environment?
Policy Decisions:
  • Advance The Line: A strategy to move the defence of an area seaward of its existing position e.g Netherlands
  • No Active Intervention: Carry out no coastal defences activity except for safety measures
  • Hold The Line: Strategy to continue to hold the line of defence where it is e.g Blackpool and Mappleton
  • Retreat The Line: Encourage the movement of the shoreline landward of its present position in a managed or controlled manner e.g Formby Sand Dunes
Sustainable Coastal Management:
  • Old approach was hard engineering but it was too expensive and maybe not needed e.g Spurn Head was built without care and the main focus was protection and maybe not the environment
  • New approach: Considers economic, social and environmental factors, still uses hard engineering where it must e.g Blackpool but uses more soft engineering e.g Formby. Don't always hold the line, and SMP with sustainability the key.
Coastal Management For The Future:
  • Shoreline Management Plan (SMP): For coastal defence issues to match sediment cells.
  • Integrated Coastal Zones Management (ICZM): Broader issues including transport and business from the EU
  • Coastal Re-Alignment: Allowing the sea to reclaim land e.g flooding fields so that they become salt marshes.
  • By using new strategies they are trying to: Ensure sustainability e.g easier to maintain and compatible with other coastal areas, cheaper and more effective overall, reduce stakeholders conflict, environmental needs e.g protecting the ecosystem, replace hard engineering with soft engineering where it is beneficial.
Shoreline Management Plan (SMP):
  • Made public in 1995 to address the conflicts between competing for coastal interests
  • Sustainable, compatible and takes account of natural coastal processes as well as the needs of people
  • Thus came sediment cells – 11 of them. Interrupting the movement of one cell will have no significant effect on the other.
Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM):
  • Objective to establish sustainable levels of economic and social activity whilst protecting the coastal environment
  • Brings the stakeholders to facilitates the integration of their interests and responsibilities.
  • Overcomes the piecemeal approach
  • Recognises the contact on river catchments and the importance of sediment cells
Medmerry RSPB Reserve: Sussex:
  • Environment agency was the key player
  • In the past, they would regrade the beach and now a flood wall has been created
  • Objectives: Manage the flood risk, create habitats, involvement of community
  • Cheaper, sustainable and it also acts as a flooding barrier.
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