Holderness Coast

• What is a Shoreline Management Plan (SMP) and ICZM?

  • Holistic management plan for significant stretches of coastline
  • Looks at wider impacts of management strategies and involves all stakeholders
  • Aims to balance natural processes with human needs
• What are traditional approaches to coastal management?

  • Hard and soft engineering
  • Focus is on short stretches of coastline
  • Intention is to stop or slow down erosion or reduce the risk of flooding
  • Focusses on just the issue
  • Expensive to implement
• Coastal processes operating on the Holderness Coast?

  • Erosion - the soft boulder clay is easily eroded by wave action
  • Mass movement - the boulder clay is prone to slumping when its wet. Water makes the clay heavier and acts as a lubricant between particles which makes it unstable
  • Transportation - prevailing winds from the northeast transport material southwards. These winds also create an ocean current which transports material south by LSD.
  • Deposition - where the ocean current meets the outflow of the Humber River, the flow becomes turbulent and sediment is deposited.
• Lanscapes at Holderness?

  • Headlands and wave cut platforms - to the north of the area, the boulder clay overlies chalk. The chalk is harder and the less easily eroded, so it has formed a headland and wave cut platform.
  • Slumping cliffs - Tiered cliffs as of collapse of unconsolidated material
  • Beaches - wide sand and pebble beach formed near Bridlington
  • Sand dunes - around Spurn Head
  • Spit - erosion and LSD have created a curved end to a spit at the mouth of the Humber Estuary called Spurn Head. Estuarine mudflats and salt marshes have formed at the curved end of it.
• Aims of SMP's on the Holderness?

  • develop a sustainable management approach (actions that don't cause problems elsewhere) for the shoreline that takes account of the key issues and achieve the best possible balance of all value and features that occur around the shoreline over the next 100 years
  • recognises that strong relationships between social, economic and environmental activities
• Role of SMP's?

  • co-ordinate activities between local authorities
  • address the conflicts between coastal activities
  • make a sustainable defence strategy which is compatible with adjacent coastal areas
  • take into account natural coastal processes and the people affected
  • encourage co-operation between coastal stakeholders
• ICZM?

  • an approach that recognises that coastal zones arent just for marine processes but also involves activities on the shoreline, inland and offshore
  • the key aim of ICZM planning is to co-ordinate all the potential pressures and conflicts of interest at the coast and manage them fairly, responsibly and sustainably
  • takes into account the interests of all stakeholders involved with the coast
• Natural causes of erosion?

  • in a stormy year the waves can remove 7-10 metres of land
  • the cliff is made of soft boulder-clay and sands (glacial till deposited in the last ice age) which are unconsolidated
  • rain enters cracks in the cliff and it becomes saturated and top heavy
  • when winds blow from the north east the waves cross a large stretch of open water and build up lots of energy
• problems caused by erosion?

  • loss of settlements and livelihoods - 80,000km of farmland is lost each year
  • loss of infrastructure - the gas terminal at Easington is only 25m from the cliff
  • loss of sites of special scientific interest (SSSI's) - lagoons near Easington are important habitats for birds
  • 29 villages have been lost to erosion in the past 2,000 years
  • sea levels in Holderness are rising by 4mm per year(eustatic sea level change in response to climate change)
• How has hard engineering been used along the coast?

  • Bridlington is protected by 4.7km of sea wall as well as timber groynes
  • Hornsea has rip rap, rimber groynes and a sea wall
  • Mappleton has two rock groynes and a 500m revetment built in 1991 and cost £2 million
  • Groynes, rip rap and a sea wall at Withernsea
  • Easington gas terminal is protected by a revetment
  • Eastern side of Spurn Head is protected by groynes and rip rap
• Why existing schemes are not sustainable?

  • Groynes help build up beaches but starves areas down the coast of sediment causing increased rates of erosion (like Cowden Farm at risk)
  • Sediment produced from erosion is normally washed into the Humber estuary to make the mud flat but now there is a reduction in sediment which increases the risk of flooding along the Humber and increases erosion down the Lincolnshire Coast
  • Protection of local areas is leading to the formation of bays between those areas putting pressure on headlands and increasing the cost of maintaining those sea defences
• Challenges for all possible schemes?

  • SMP for the next 50 years recommends 'holding the line' at some settlements (e.g Mappleton and Bridlington) however this is an unpopular approach as nothing is done
  • Managed realignment has been suggested like relocating caravan parks. More of a sustainable approach as the cliff can erode naturally without endangering businesses. Issues around how much compensation businesses will get for relocating
  • Do nothing like at Spurn Head which saves money
  • Easington Gas Terminal has rock revetments and the SMP says maintaining them for as long as its in business
• Mappleton-

  • 50 properties
  • 100 residents
  • B1242 runs through it
  • introduced groynes made of granit stone to stop LSD
  • cliff was landscaped so the gradient was reduced to reduce the risk of slumping
  • groynes made the beach wider to protect the cliff
  • rock armour introduced
  • areas south of mappleton have been starved of sediment and so rates of erosion have increased
• Flamborough Head SMP-

  • chalk cliffs
  • they allowed natural processes to continue
• Holderness Cliffs SMP-

  • allow natural processes to continue along the frontage whilst sustaining Bridlington, Hornsea and Withernsea as viable towns and seaside resorts
  • policies intend to protect the viability of Mappleton and a strategy north-south transport link
  • policies intend to sustain Bridlington and Easington gas terminals
• Spurn Head SMP-

  • formed 8000 years ago and is a temporary sediment store
  • allow the Spurn Barrier to evolve largely naturally with as little intervention as is required to maintain the spit
  • maintain access to key facilities and assets
  • causing minimal interruption to the natural environment, coatal processes and functionality of Spurn Head