Coastal Management

Question 1

What are some reasons to protect the coast?

Answer 1

• Protect tourism
• Protect industrial use
• Protect people, half the population live 60km from coast, 3/4 of all large cities are at the coast
• Protect environments eg coasts, mangroves, saltmarshes

Question 2

What are the two MAIN AIMS of coastal management, and some secondary aims?

Answer 2

MAIN AIMS:
* Provide defence, and mitigate the impacts of coastal FLOODING and EROSION.
SECONDARY AIMS:
* stabilising dune systems and beaches, protecting fragile esturarine landscapes.

Question 3

What are the different approaches to coastal management?

Answer 3

1) HOLD THE LINE - maintaining current position of coastline.
2) ADVANCE THE LINE - extend coastline out to see, usually by building up beach.
3) MANAGED RETREAT (aka strategic realignment) - allowing coastline to retreat in a very strategic, managed way.
4) NO ACTIVE INTERVENTION - do nothing!

Question 4

What are the two methods of engineering?

Answer 4

Soft = using natural systems for coastal defence to absorb or adjust wave energy.
Hard = making a physical change to the coastal landscape to control the natural processes.

Question 5

What is an SMP? What does it stand for? How many are in the UK?

Answer 5

Shoreline management plan; coastline management plans in the UK which involve local and national governments, businesses and locals in making decisions. They use the sediment cell principle.
There are 22 in the UK.

Question 6

What are the key features of an SMP?

Answer 6

• Aim to plan short (0-20 years), medium (20-50 years) and long (50-100 years) term.
• Provide risk assessment.
• Aim to be economically viable and environmentally stable.
• Comply with international and national environmental legislation.
• Looks at a larger stretch of the coast, and assigns areas under one of the 4 approaches.

Question 7

What is the internationally used version of an SMP?

Answer 7

Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM)