SH1631

Coastal Management
By Alex Jackson
It’s becoming increasingly important for councils and governments to start managing coastlines
in order to protect them from increasing coastal erosion and flooding due to altering sea levels. The
reason for coastal management is obvious, to protect homes and businesses from being damaged and
even destroyed by coastal erosion or flooding. Failure to do so can have severe economic and social
effects, especially along coastlines which are used for tourism and industry (pretty much all of them).
Management of coastlines is also important to help protect natural habitats, however
governments generally don’t engage in coastal management where there isn’t an economic risk as
effective coastal management is very expensive.
When engaging in coastal management, there are four key approaches that can be taken:
1. Hold the line - Where existing coastal defenses are maintained but no new defenses are set up.
2. Advance the line - New defenses are built further out in the sea in an attempt to reduce the
stress on current defenses and possibly extend the coastline slightly.
3. Retreat the line (surrender) - Move people out of danger zones and let Mother Nature unleash
take control.
4. Do nothing - The easy option, deal with the effects of flooding and erosion as they come or
just ignore them. This is generally what happens in areas where there’s no people, and so
nothing of “value” (to the government) to protect.
Like most engineering schemes in geography, there’s hard and soft coastal engineering. As
usual, hard engineering techniques are high technology, high cost, and human made solutions. They
do little to work with nature and sustainability is a key issue with them, despite their initial signs of
success. Soft engineering techniques are low tech, low cost solutions that work with nature to reduce
erosion. They’re no where near as effective as hard engineering techniques but they’re far more
sustainable.

A. Hard Engineering Techniques

1. Sea Walls
These are the most obvious defensive methods. Sea walls are exactly that. Giant walls that span
entire coastlines and attempt to reduce erosion and prevent flooding in the process. They’re
big, ugly and very expensive requiring constant maintenance so that they don’t fail. They also
produce a strong backwash in waves which undercuts the sea wall making their long term
sustainability questionable.
Traditionally, sea walls are large flat walls however more modern sea walls have a curved
structure that reflects waves back into incoming waves, breaking them up and further reducing
erosion.
2. Groynes
Groynes are relatively soft hard engineering techniques. They’re low lying wooden walls that
extend out to sea. The idea of groynes is to capture sand that moves down the beach via long
shore drift and help build up a larger section of beach in front of an area that’s experiencing
coastal erosion. The new beach will increase the distance that waves have to travel to reach the
coast and, in the process, they’ll lose most of their energy, reducing their impact. Groynes are

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pretty effective but they have one major drawback. Groynes will remove a lot of the sand that’s
present down-drift of the beach which will result in a thinner beach at this area. This, in turn,
means that sections of the coast will be more exposed to erosion down drift of the groynes
which can create new problems relating to coastal management.
3. Gabions
Gabions are quite simply bundles of rocks in a metal mesh. They’re placed at the base of a cliff
in an attempt to reduce the impact of waves on the cliff and prevent the cliff from being
undercut. They’re not particularly effective and they’re quite unsightly but they’re sure as hell
cheap.
4. Revetments
Revetments are concrete (or in some cases wooden) structures that are built along the base of
a cliff. They’re slanted and act as a barrier against waves not too dissimilar to a sea wall. The
revetments absorb the energy of the waves, preventing the cliffs from being eroded.
Revetments can be modified so that they have rippled surfaces, which further help to dissipate
the wave energy. Revetments are normally successful at reducing coastal erosion but they are
expensive to build. Once built however, they don’t require as much maintenance as a sea wall.
5. Riprap
Riprap are just rocks and stones that have been put against the base of a cliff. They’re similar
to gabions in their purpose but they aren’t bound together in a mesh. This makes them look
slightly more appealing as they blend into the environment better however the rocks are
susceptible to being moved by the sea.
6. Breakwaters
Breakwaters are offshore concrete walls that break incoming waves out at sea so that their
erosive power is reduced to next to none when they reach the coast. Breakwaters are effective
but they can be easily destroyed during a storm and they don’t look particularly nice.
7. Tidal barriers
Big, retractable walls built across estuaries that can be used as a floodgate to prevent storm
surges. They’re hugely effective but they’re also hugely expensive.

B. Soft Engineering Techniques

1. Beach Nourishment
This is where sand and shingle are added to a beach in order to make it wider. This increases
the distance a wave has to travel to reach the cliffs and so the wave will lose more energy and
have less erosive power when it reaches the cliffs. The sand and shingle has to be obtained
from elsewhere and is normally obtained from dredging.
2. Land Management
Land management is often used to help protect and rebuild dunes. Sand dunes act as a good
barrier against coastal flooding and erosion and they can be exploited as a natural defence
against the sea. In order to do so though, the dunes must be left relatively undisturbed so
boardwalks are constructed and sections of sand dune systems are marked as out of bounds to
the general public in order to reduce the erosion of the dunes by humans. This land management
is discussed in more detail here.

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3. Marshland Creation
Marshland can be used to break up the waves and reduce their speed, reducing the waves
erosive power. The marshlands also limit the area which waves can reach preventing flooding.
The marshlands can be created by encouraging the growth of marshland vegetation such as
glassworts.
4. Beach Stabilisation
The goal of beach stabilisation is the same as beach nourishment’s goal, to widen the beach
and dissipate as much wave energy as possible before it reaches the cliffs. Beach stabilisation
involves planting dead trees in the sand to stabilise it and lower the profile of the beach while
widening the beach too.

Case Study
Location
The Wirral is located in the north west of England, to the south of Liverpool. The Wirral is
a peninsula meaning that three sides of the Wirral are surrounded by water while the fourth side is
attached to the land. To the west of the Wirral is the Irish Sea, to the north is the River Mersey and to
the south is the River Dee. The Wirral did, and continues to in some areas, serve as an important port
for the United Kingdom and today, sections of the Wirral’s coastline are used as reasonably popular
tourist destinations. On differing sections of the Wirral’s coastline, different types of coastal defences
have been employed in an attempt to reduce the impacts of coastal erosion on the coast. A combination
of both hard engineering and soft engineering techniques have been employed.
Hard Engineering in New Brighton
New Brighton was a very important coastal tourist destination on the Wirral however over the
past 30 years the area has fallen into decline. In more recent years, the area has been rejuvenated and
many new structures have been constructed along New Brighton making protecting New Brighton
from the sea incredibly important. Land uses in New Brighton include economic and residential uses.
In recent years a new theatre has been constructed in New Brighton known as the “Floral Pavilion”.
This venue is of particular importance to New Brighton as it is the primary source of visitors to the
area and has received much recognition including a visit from The Queen.
New Brighton is at particular risk of coastal flooding and erosion due to its location. Located
on the North West tip of Wirral, New Brighton receives a pounding from the sea. Waves that impact
New Brighton are very energetic as they’ve got a strong fetch from the approximately 200km of water
(the Irish Sea) that the New Brighton coast faces. In addition, a low pressure system around New
Brighton means that storm surges are a common occurrence making the area particularly susceptible
to flooding. This is worsened by the fact that most of New Brighton is only a few metres above sea
level so only a relatively small storm surge would be needed to flood a large section of New Brighton.
In order to protect New Brighton, several sea defences have been employed. In order to protect
against both coastal erosion and flooding, a large sea wall was constructed in the 1930s, known as the
King’s Parade Sea Wall. The wall is 4m tall and stretches along 2.3km of coastline. It was constructed
using leftover material from the construction of the Queensway tunnel. The wall is specially designed
in order to reduce the impact of waves as much as possible and increase its lifespan at the same time.
The top of the wall is curved slightly in order to reflect back waves that impact it and dissipate their

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energy. This helps reduce the rate at which the sea wall is worn down since it is, slowly, being worn
away. This is one of the main issues with the wall, it requires a lot of attention and is expensive.

https://geographyas.info/coasts/coastal-management/

The King’s Parade Sea Wall.

It has, however, been very effective at preventing both coastal erosion and flooding. The wall
has produced 100m of ‘new’ land. In reality, this is land that was submerged by the sea but is no longer
submerged since the sea can’t access it any more. In addition to this reclaimed land, there have been
no cases of cliff collapse in many years and there have been no major floods either, suggesting that the
wall is effective at preventing flooding.
In tandem with the sea wall, coastal zoning has taken place along New Brighton in an attempt
to reduce the risk of flooding should the sea wall. The aforementioned 100m of reclaimed land is
almost completely undeveloped, with the exception of a few parks, since it’s very low lying land and
should the sea wall be breached it would be flooded very rapidly. Pretty much all residential
developments are placed on top of the relic cliffs so that they have a little bit of protection in the event
of a flood.
Soft Engineering - Thursaston
Thursaston is located on the opposite side of the Wirral and is the exact opposite to New
Brighton in terms of development and importance (to some people). Thursaston has very little in terms
of human developments. The area is in fact a SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest) and is mostly
just plants and wildlife with some interesting sandstone landforms. Given that Thursaston lacks human
development, little has been done to prevent coastal erosion here. What has been done, though, is all
soft engineering.
The cliffs along Thursaston are very susceptible to erosion despite the fact that the waves
washing ashore are relatively weak constructive waves. The reason for their susceptibility is their
composition. They’re primarily weak sandstone and boulder clay and the bedding layers of the cliffs
dip towards the sea, so they’re not particularly stable. The cliffs are also susceptible to sub-aerial
weathering and mass movements are frequently take place along them.

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Given the low-value land that lies behind these cliffs, the local council and environmental
agency has done little in terms of trying to protect these cliffs and what has been done wasn’t
particularly effective.
Gabions were placed around the bases of the cliffs and can still be found there today. The idea
was to reduce undercutting of the cliffs by the sea but they haven’t been all too successful since the
cliffs are still collapsing today. Now days, the main benefit of the gabions is that they provide a (small)
habitat for several species of plant and insect, that’s about it. The plants that have colonised the gabions
help to make the gabions appear to blend into the environment a bit better too.
Another soft engineering technique that was employed was the introduction of drainage pipes
into the cliffs. Given that the cliffs are made of boulder clay, if they became saturated with water they’d
become lubricated quickly and mass movements would begin to take place. The drainage pipe was
supposed to remove water from the cliffs stopping them from becoming saturated but it has proved to
be totally ineffective. This is evident from the fact that a severed pipe bound in concrete can be found
just lying on the beach. The cliff collapsed and the pipe fell out and was left on the beach. This is a
testimony to both the effectiveness of the pipe and how much the council cares about the cliffs.

The ‘Fail Pipe’

The cliffs are likely to continue
collapsing at Thursaston however there is
one thing that may save them. A salt marsh
appears to be developing before the cliffs
and, with a little help from some humans,
could be enough to stop the cliffs from
collapsing. Unfortunately nobody is helping
the marsh to develop and people are going
around and removing many of the plants that
are growing there as if a salt marsh was to
develop, it would prove to be a problem for
the sailing groups located nearby. https://geographyas.info/coasts/coastal-management/

References
Jackson, A. (n.d.). Coastal Management. Retrieved from Geography AS Notes:
https://geographyas.info/coasts/coastal-management/

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