Examples of Coastal Management Techniques

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Blackpool: Hold the Line

- Blackpool is one of many coastal seaside resorts along the Lancashire coast.

- The land is low lying so flooding is more of a threat than erosion.

- Blackpool has piers, a promenade, tower and famous pleasure beach which brings in 6 million visitors a year.

- A massive concrete sea wall (hard engineering) has been used to protect its investment in the tourist industry but this comes with a very high price tag.

- Despite he recent decline in Blackpool's tourist numbers, the resort has recently received £62 million of funding through DEFRA to develop its central promenade which is overtopped in winter storms.

- The new wall will be designed to deflect and absorb the waves energy rather than resist it and it will be extended by 5 hectares along with an improvement to the access to the beach.

- The sea wall protects 1,500 businesses and residential properties.

- Blackpool also uses soft engineering in the form of dune regeneration.

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Abbotts Hall Farm: Managed Retreat

- The scheme to have a managed retreat was introduced in 2002.

- The eustatic rise and isostatic sinking has resulted in a 6mm rise per year in this area.

- 40% of salt marshes have been lost to coastal squeeze over the last 25 years.

- The salt marshes are an important breeding and nesting environment for birds but this land is being eroded at a rate of 2m per year.

- 5 breaches were made in the embankments, allowing 80 hectares of arable fields to be covered in sea water meaning it will now also become salt marsh.

- The success of this scheme has persuaded the RSPB to embark on a much larger project which will involve returning the whole of the nearby island of Wallasea to an extensive mosaic of marsh, creeks and mudflats.

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Sheringham: Advance the Line

- Sheringham is located on the North Norfolk coast with a population of 7,143.

- It is an important tourist resort for Norfolk and it has many hotels and cafes to cater for the industry which brings in a large proportion of its revenue for the local economy.

- The area has been protected because of the high land value and the busy tourist town environment which brings in revenue.

- The forms of hard engineering used in Sheringham are sea walls, groynes and promenades.

- The first sea wall in Sheringham was built in Victorian times.

- Research has shown that most beaches in North Norfolk including Sheringham are eroding, getting shorter and steeper allowing deeper water inshore to attack the man made defences.

- In 1998, £1.5 million was spent on repairing and replacing the wooden groynes and installing rock groynes.

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Weybourne: Do Nothing

- It is a small fishing village also located on the North Norfolk coast with a population of 518 (2001 census).

- A do nothing approach is in place because the land is mainly used for agriculture.

- Revetments were once in place but in 1998 these were destroyed by storms and then left unmanaged.

- The cliff face is showing a lot of evidence of slumping and sub-aerial weathering.

- The danger of this approach to Weybourne is that there are 5 coastguard cottages approximately 10m from the cliff.

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