Geo Factsheet

January 1997 Number 8

Coastal Management
Since they are often extensive areas of flat, fertile, picturesque land, coastal areas are very attractive for a wide range of human activities.
However, approximately 25% of the English coastline has been heavily developed for housing, industry, agriculture and leisure and is
always under attack from both the local weather and the action of the sea, resulting in coastal erosion. This Factsheet will discuss the
problems caused by coastal erosion and the techniques used to reduce them.

What is Coastal Erosion? Coastal Management The principle objective of hard engineering is to
resist the energy of waves and tides by a fixed
Coastal management plans have two fundamental structure. At present, such structures protect
Coastal erosion can be defined as the loss of
aims: approximately 10% of the British coastline.
land and the encroachment of the sea. It is a
complex process involving considerable
• To provide defence against water inundation
interactions between the following Exam hint - Students should show
(flooding)
components: understanding that coastal erosion and the
• To provide protection against coastal erosion. resultant coastal land forms, such as
• Wind beaches and cliffs, are a result of the
• Wave action interaction between all of these factors and
The main component of these plans is the
• Tides the shoreline.
presence of coastal defences. These can be
• Types of sediment and sediment
broadly divided into two categories:
transport patterns
• Storms The widespread use of hard coastal defences in
Soft coastal defences
This is the use of natural systems in coastal coastal protection has both advantages and
Coastal erosion is a significant problem to land disadvantages (Table 1).
defence, for example, salt marshes and beaches,
use. It results in cliff face slumping, loss of coastal
which can absorb and adjust to wave and tide
land which may have been developed for human
energy. Soft coastal defence involves manipulating
activities, erosion of beaches and flooding. For
and maintaining these systems, without changing
example, studies of the Kent coastline have
their fundamental structure.
indicated retreat of cliff areas by 27m between
1872 and 1970. It is therefore essential to devise
Hard coastal defences - These are rigid
coastal management plans to minimise any threat
‘engineering’ solutions, made principally of
to life and to protect natural and man-made
concrete. Examples include sea walls,
features.
breakwaters, groynes and jetties (See Fig 1).

Fig 1. Examples of hard coastal defences

Boulders
Reduce wave energy reaching
coastline and stabilise sediments.

Groynes
Breakwater (timber, rock or
Stabilise cliff face.
other materials) at 90° to the
coastline to slow erosion and
sediment drifting by deflecting Iron Bar
strong currents, and to build up
beach level.

Storm

High tide
Polders
Concrete Wall Timber or concrete enclosures to
Absorb wave energy, preventing Drainage encourage sedimentation, causing build up
erosion and flooding. of the coastline.

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Coastal Management Geo Factsheet

Table 1. Advantages and Modern Coastal Management SMPs can only achieve these aims through a
combination of both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ approaches.
disadvantages of hard coastal One of the major components of soft coastal
The problems identified with local scale hard
protection coastal defences and an increased understanding defences are salt marshes.
of the erosional and depositional processes
Advantages which operate over many miles of coastline have The Value of Salt marshes
resulted in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
• Effective on a local scale through both and Food (MAFF) developing Shoreline Salt marshes are found in the tidal zone
absorbing and reducing wave energy and Management Plans (SMPs). These use an bordering the sea or estuaries. They are
retaining local structures.
holistic approach, which means looking at the composed of grasses and other low growing
• Protection and reassurance for people large scale effect of any management technique. vegetation colonising sediment deposits
and property in the coastal environment.
All SMPs have the same fundamental aims: (See Fig 2).
• Increase in land available for human use.
Hard sea defences such as sea walls • Produce site specific management plans
Many of the characteristic physical features of
make coastal land available for covering coastal cells (see Fig 2).
agricultural development such as the saltmarshes enable them to provide a natural
Dutch Polders. Groynes and breakwaters sea defence:
maintain beaches which have a high These are sections of coast where the system of
recreational value. erosion and deposition is to a large extent self- • The binding effect of the saltmarsh
contained. vegetation, with its extensive root system,
Disadvantages causes continual accumulation of sediment.
• Take account of natural coastal processes
Consequently, tidal inundation becomes less
and current and future land use.
• Localised or isolated coastal protection frequent and a protective barrier is produced
can be counter-productive on a larger • Provide sustainable coastal defences. between the coast and the sea which reduces
scale. Defence work in one area has
consequences for neighbouring regions, These are defences which are economical and tidal energy, even during storms. The
e.g. groynes may prevent sediment not environmentally damaging at the present shallower the slope of the region, the more
reaching a spit formation in an area time, or in the future. energy is lost from the waves before they
further down the coastline, or offshore break.
breakwaters may interefere with natural • Encourage co-operation between District
currents and sediment transport, causing • The friction of the rough marsh vegetation
erosion.
Councils and the Environment Agency, the
agencies jointly responsible for coast and reduces tidal energy.
• Hard coastal defences such as sea walls flood protection.
require continual, expensive maintenance. • The creek system covering saltmarshes
To upgrade a concrete armoured sea wall • Account for rising sea level and increased divides progressively moving landward.
costs around £3000 to £5000 per metre.
storm frequency. These resultant smaller branches provide
• Hard defences cannot respond to predicted an increasing surface area to incoming water,
sea level changes due to global warming, increasing friction, so again reducing tidal
e.g. Southern Britain is predicted a 15m to Exam hint - Students are very often required to
80m sea level rise by 2050, combined with energy.
explain how and why the movement of beach
increased storm frequency, causing severe material can be controlled. In addition, they
problems for existing defences. • Saltmarshes are dynamic, being able to adapt
should understand how hard coastal defences
cause sediment supply to coastal features to both to changing tidal range and sea level. This is
• Sea defence walls directly behind natural
ecosystems, such as saltmarshes, prevent
increase and decrease. For example, beach obviously important with the predicted
nourishment, groynes and breakwater changes over the next 100 years.
the ecosystem responding to sea level
construction, dredging and dumping can all
change and increased erosion.
increase levels of sediment in one area, but
reduce supply in others.

Figure 2. Generalised saltmarsh showing main vegetation zones

Upper
Tidal Pioneer Zone Low-Mid Marsh Zone Mid-Upper Marsh Zone Drift Marsh Transistion
Flat Sparse Species-poor Puccinella- Species-rich communities Zone Swamps Zone
Algae Vegetation dominated communities with increasing Festuca Brackish
communities

HWMST

Pan
Saltmarsh cliff
Creek

LWMST

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Coastal Management Geo Factsheet

It is also important that students appreciate that

the use of natural ecosystems has other wide
reaching benefits. These are summarised in Table
Case study
2. The Hythe Coastal Protection Strategy for the Shepway Coast
Table 2. Value of coastal saltmarshes and sand The Shepway coastline is on the south coast of England, extending for over 40km from west
dunes of Dungeness to east of Folkestone. The existing coastal defences include:

• Natural coastal defences - sand dunes and sand and shingle beaches.
Biotic: Human:
Nurseries for fish & Location for recreation
wildfowl and relaxation • Man-made coastal defences - concrete sea walls, timber and iron work groynes and
Migratory stopover Aesthetic value. extensive boulders for cliff protection.
Gene bank
Aquaculture potential.
Despite these measures, large areas of the coast are periodically flooded, with significant
Biochemical: Water:
disturbance to the infrastructure, closure of roads and damage to property. One of the major
Recycle nutrients Store flood water reasons for this is that many of the hard coastal defences are nearing the end of their useful
Store organic matter and Conserve water during life, highlighting the problem with such structures. The Hythe Coastal Protection Strategy is
CO2 sink. droughts. to reduce the problems which lead to flooding and damage along the coast.

The strategy has 2 main points:

Managed retreat and managed • The construction of two rock groynes and a beach nourishment programme through
deposition of shingle. This will increase shingle and beach level so as to absorbs more
advance wave energy, reducing attack on the land.
There are two main approaches in which natural • On-going monitoring and maintenance including monitoring of sediment transport,
ecosystems, such as salt marshes and sand dunes, beach management plans and beach surveys.
are used in soft coastal defences:
This scheme aims to build upon and maximise the use of natural coastal features such as
• Managed retreat - This involves beaches, reducing the need to construct hard coastal defences and the use of non-sustainable
abandoning the current line of sea defences materials.
and then developing the exposed land to
reduce wave power, perhaps through salt
marsh development. In this way the scale of
sea walls and other hard coastal defences can
be reduced. This ‘do-nothing approach’ can • Creation of a saltmarsh may also influence
only occur where land use permits, i.e. where the surrounding coast in ways which are
the abandoned land is of low value. poorly understood. Sediment load and
levels of algal growth in water courses have
• Managed advance - This attempts to move not been thoroughly studied..
the shoreline zone seaward, by increasing
the amount of sedimentation along the coast.
There are a wide variety of techniques
available for this, including using groynes,
GLOSSARY
polder systems and breakwaters. This is
quite a widely used technique, particularly Accretion - build up of beach material at the
in Holland and Britain. shoreline
Beach nourishment - artificially increasing Acknowledgements;
Despite the obvious advantages, there are various beach level with imported beach material
This Geo Factsheet was researched and
problems associated with using natural Breakwater - natural or man-made barrier
written by James Sharpe..
ecosystems such as salt marshes in coastal for reducing wave energy
Coastal Processes - Physical factors such
management: Geo Press
as waves, tides and sea level rise which
10 St Pauls Square
• To successfully establish a saltmarsh a interact with the shoreline
Birmingham
thorough understanding of the local Deposition - Accumulation of beach material
B3 1QU
environment is required, which is both time Erosion - Wearing away of the shoreline by
consuming and expensive to obtain. For coastal processes
Geopress Factsheets may be copied free of charge
example, information is needed on sediment Managed retreat - Creation of extensive
by teaching staff or students, provided that their
availability and wave action. natural defences, such as salt marshes
school is a registered subscriber.

• Natural ecosystems such as saltmarshes are No part of these Factsheets may be reproduced,
prone to disease or pollution events which stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in
could kill much of the vegetation, resulting any other form or by any other means, without
in the unbound sediment being washed the prior permission of the publisher.
away and the loss of the coastal defence.
ISSN 1351-5136