coastal management

• Aims for coastal management

  • protect homes, businesses and environment from the erosion and flooding
  • Serve social, economic and environmental impacts
  • Not all places will have coastal management and requires a cost-benefit analysis
• coastal management

  • hold the line
  • advance the line
  • do nothing
  • managed retreat
• Hard engineering

  • sea wall
  • revetment
  • gabions
  • ripraps
  • groynes
  • breakwaters
  • earth bank
  • Tidal barrier
  • tidal barrage
• Sea wall


  the wall reflects back the energy and wave to the sea, preventing erosion and prevents flooding. Expensive to build and maintain. But it creates strong backwash which erodes under the water
• Revetment 


  Slandered structures that is built at the foot of the cliffs made from concrete or wood and the waves break against the revetments which absorbs the wave energy and prevents cliff erosion.
• Gabion


  Rock filled cages at the foot of a cliff to absorb wave energy and reduce erosion. They are cheap But ugly
• RipRap


  Boulders piled up along the coast to absorb wave energy. Cheap but can shift during the storms
• Groynes 


  Fences that built at right angles to the coast. They trap beach sediement and disrupts longshore drift. This creates wider beaches which slows down waves. Cheap but can starve sediment down beach causing more erosion down the coast
• Breakwaters 


  Concrete blocks or boulders deposited off the coast and they force waves to break offshore. The waves energy and erosive power are reduced before they reach the shore
• earth bank 


  Mounds of earth acts as a barrier to prevent flooding. Quite expensive but can be eroded away
• Tidal barrier


  Built across river estuaries and contain retractable floodgates that can be raised to prevent flooding from storm surges. Very expensive
• Tidal barrage 


  Dams that are built across river estruies and it can create hydro electricity and control the water at high tide. They can also prevent flooding from storm surges
• soft engineering

  • beach nourishment
  • beach stabilisation
  • dune regeneration
  • land use management
  • creating marshland
  • coastal realignment.
• Beach nourishment 


  Sand and shingle are added to the beaches from somewhere else, creating wide beaches which reduces erosion of cliffs
• Beach stabilisation 


  Reducing the angle of the beach and planting vegetation to stabilise the sand. This also creates wide beaches which reduced the erosion
• Dune regeneration 


  Adding sand back to the dunes to provide a barrier
• Land use management 


  Important for dune regeneration. Creating wooden walkways so people cannot trample on the dunes and reduce vegetation loss
• Creating marshlands 


  Planting the correct plants in the marshlands can stabilise the sediment and reduce the speed of the waves and power.
• Coastal realignment 


  Managed retreat and allowing the area being flooded and creating a mudflat over time
• Sustainable management plans

  • SMPS
  • ICZM
• Why is traditional coastal defences bad?

  Hard engineering are often expensive and disrupts the natural processes. Soft engineering is often cheaper and require less time and money to maintain and incorporates the natural living habitats
• SMPs


  Shoreline management plans are organised by sediment cells. Each cell has a plan to protect important sites without causing problems elsewhere in the cell. All local authorities are in operated in one cell and help make the SMP.
• ICZM 


  Integrated coastal zone management considers all elements of the system and aim to protect the coral zone in its natural system whilst allowing people to use it and develop in many ways. The environment is viewed as a whole and the land and water is interdependent. Different uses are considered and local, regional and national levels of authorities are considered and have an input. It is a dynamic strategy so the decisions are re-evaluated if there is a change.