Case study: Coastal management of Newcastle

Newcastle is set in Dundrum bay, Co. Down and has 20km of beach. It needs coastal management because there are so many tourists which has caused coastal pressure and they need to protect and preserve the beach. In 1869 a rail link opened between Belfast and Newcastle. 15,000 tourists visit it each summer.

There are human and physical reasons for maintenance.

Human reasons are: Maintenance of rail link and pressure of so many people on the beach could destroy it.

Physical reasons are:

• waves control the system here.
• small fetch and waves approach from the south east.
• shallow and wide beach dissipates energy.
• constructive waves are dominant.
• sediment which makes up the beach was washed down after the Ice Age.

however, there are storms that can remove material and longshore drift moves material from the coast of Newcastle.

Several management strategies have been…