SMP

Question 1

What is the SMP?

Answer 1

A shoreline management plan (SMP) is a high level policy document in which the organisations that manage the shoreline set their long term plan.

Question 2

What does the SMP aim to identify?

Answer 2

The SMP aims to identify the best ways to manage flood and erosion risk to people and the developed, historic and natural environment and to identify opportunities where shoreline management can work with others to make improvements.

Question 3

What area does this SMP cover?

Answer 3

North Norfolk from Old Hunstanton to Kelling Hard.

Question 4

What bigger organisation is the SMP part of?

Answer 4

The SMP is an important part of the department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) strategy for managing flood and coastal erosion risk.

Question 5

What aims does Defra have?

Answer 5

To reduce the threat of flooding and erosion to people and their property.
To benefit the environment, society and the economy as far as possible, in line with the governments ‘sustainable development principals’. These are standards set by the UK Government, the Scottish Executive and welsh Assembly Government for a policy to be sustainable.

Question 6

What level of planning in defra’s strategy is the SMP?

Answer 6

The highest level.

Question 7

What is the main aim of the SMP?

Answer 7

The main aim of the SMP is to develop an ‘intent of management’ for the shoreline that achieves the best possible balance of all the values and features around the shoreline for the next 100 years.

Question 8

What is the intent of management?

Answer 8

It describes what we want to achieve by managing the shoreline.

Question 9

Describe the meaning of hold the line.

Answer 9

This involves holding the defence system where it is now by maintaining or changing the standard of protection. This policy should cover those situations where work or operations are carried out in front of the existing defences (such as beach recharge), rebuilding the toe of structure, building offshore breakwaters and so on. This includes building on the back of existing flood defences such as secondary flood walls where they are an important part of maintaining the current coastal defence system.

Question 10

Describe the meaning of advance the line.

Answer 10

This involves building new defences seaward of the existing defence line. If relevant, this policy should only be used on those stretches of coastline where significant land reclamation is considered.

Question 11

Describe the meaning of managed re-alignment.

Answer 11

This involves allowing the shoreline to move seaward or landward, with associated management to control or limit the effect of land use and environment. This can take various forms, depending on what we want to achieve. All are characterised by managing change not only technically (by breeching and building defences) but also for land use and environment (by aiding or ensuring adaptation).

Question 12

Describe NAI

Answer 12

No active intervention (NAI) - this involves no further investment in caostal defences or operations.

Question 13

What was the boundary at Kelling Hard selected to coincide with?

Answer 13

The North Norfolk drift divide which is known to move between Cromer and Weybourne, which are both to the east of this SMP.

Question 14

What boundary does the SMP have apart from Kelling and Old Hunstanton?

Answer 14

The SMP also has an inland boundary. This runs roughly parallel to the coast between the outfalls of the four river valleys. This is the boundary between the North Norfolk Shoreline management Plan and the North Norfolk Catchment Flood Management Plan (CFMP)

Question 15

What stops the tide coming up in the river valleys in North Norfolk?

Answer 15

Outfall structures form a SMP/CFMP boundary that limits the tide from coming up the river valleys.

Question 16

What does the CFMP provide?

Answer 16

The CFMPs provide polices formanaging flood risk from rivers, including the effect that high tides can have on river flooding (tide locking). The area is a low to moderate flood risk.

Question 17

What does the SMP take into account?

Answer 17

This study area includes everything that can influence shoreline management and everything that can be affected buy it. This study area covers much of the North Sea, the rivers up to at least their tidal limit =.

Question 18

For he North Norfolk SMP how much does the environmental agency mange?

Answer 18

The Environmental agency manages flood defences for the whole of the SMP area other than on frontages where the defences are privately owned.

Question 19

What are the stakeholders involved in the SMP?

Answer 19

The Royal Society for the protection of birds. The National Trust, The Norfolk Wildlife Trust, the wash & North Norfolk European Marine Site management scheme and the Water Management Alliance.

Question 20

How have SMP involved Stakeholders?

Answer 20

More than 50 stakeholders who have a greater interest in the outcome of the SMP. Some of these organisation shave been met on a one to one basis. meeting have been organised for stakeholders to attend, along with public drop in events and articles n local newspapers.

Question 21

Describe the tidal prism on The North Norfolk Coast.

Answer 21

This is a volume of water that flows in and out of a tidal channel during a complete cycle of high and low tide. For tidal channels behind a spit (such as Blakeney Spit) or a barrier island (such as Scolt Head), the tidal prism is determined by the area covered between high and low tide.

Question 22

What will happen to The North Norfolk coast if the tidal prism is increased by moving defences inland?

Answer 22

The tide brings in silt which settles where
the flow stops, causing siltation. Increasing the tidal prism by moving flood defences further inland means that more water flows through the channels and most of the silt will be carried into the newly-created intertidal area. If designed properly, the increased flow will make the existing channel larger and reduce siltation there.

Question 23

Describe the bays on The North Norfolk Coast.

Answer 23

Bays along the open coast form because of varying geology. They typically have a curved (parabolic) shape between headlands as a result of the way that waves interact with changes in depth (‘wave refraction’).

Question 24

Describe the headlands on The North Norfolk Coast.

Answer 24

Headlands can be hard or soft, natural or artificial. Headlands are control points for the shape of the bay. Changes in their location will change the shoreline in the bay. In north Norfolk, the bays are controlled by the outer tidal estuaries of the small rivers that flow into the sea, for example at the ends of Scolt Head Island and Blakeney Spit.

Question 25

How is the tidal prism restricted between Old Hunstanton and Thornham?

Answer 25

The tidal prism is currently restricted by the reclaimed land between Thornham and Holme-next-the-Sea.

Question 26

What may coastal processes change between western end of Brancaster bay to the eastern
end of Stiffkey bay to do with Scolt head island.

Answer 26

Scolt Head Island is the main physical feature in this unit. In the long term, there is a chance that Scolt Head Island will continue to roll back towards land and may even reattach to the land. This would have a big influence on the area directly behind Scolt Head Island and also on the neighbouring bays.

Question 27

What may coastal processes change between western end of Brancaster bay to the eastern
end of Stiffkey bay to do with reclaimed land?

Answer 27

The tidal prism is currently restricted by various reclaimed areas behind the barrier coast. Warham and Stiffkey marshes east of Wells-next-the-Sea form a typical ‘open coast’ and are not greatly affected by how the neighbouring frontages are managed.

Question 28

What may coastal processes change between the western end of Blakeney Spit, near Stiffkey, to Kelling Hard?

Answer 28

Blakeney Spit is the main feature and, as for Scolt Head Island, it is possible that the current process of rollback will eventually cause its western tip to reattach to the land.

Question 29

What is the rock type of the North Norfolk Coast?

Answer 29

Underlying chalk and glacial tills are the foundations of the area. Chalk underlies the whole of the north Norfolk coast area but it is only seen at the surface in two sections of the coastline: Hunstanton cliffs and a wave cut platform from Weybourne to Cromer (all just outside the SMP area).

Question 30

How were the current sediments formed on the North Norfolk Coast?

Answer 30

The ice sheets left behind great thickness’s of tills, sands and gravels. These deposits lie over the chalk bedrock and beneath the Holocene sediments deposited over the last 11,000 years. Individual clay tills vary from two to five metres thick. Many were laid down during the last glacial period when the front of the Devensian ice sheet lay along the coast. These tills extend seaward of the existing coastline.

Question 31

What was a key feature of the formation of freshwater peats on the North Norfolk Coast and the marshes?

Answer 31

Freshwater peats were being formed locally 6 to 7 tousand years ago. A key feature of this was a alyer of mudflat sediment up to 15 metres thick. Then slat marsh developed on top of the mudflat layer as the area became more waterlogged with increased salinity.

Question 32

Which coastal formations are relatively young on the North Norfolk Coast?

Answer 32

The barriers of Scolt Head Island and Blakeney Spit are relatively young, being further out to sea than others, with Scolt Head developing as a spit from Holkham and Blakeney Spit developing as a response to land reclamation.

Question 33

How does the change in coastal formations affect the way the the North Norfolk Coast is used?

Answer 33

Blakeney was once a medieval port and has been ranked as the fourth most important into the 17th century as land reclamation dominated the shoreline and reduced the navigability of the channels.

Question 34

How has land reclamation affected the North Norfolk Coast?

Answer 34

Two of the main documented reclamations were at Cley-next-the-Sea during the 17 th century. Before this reclamation, Cley had been a trading port but it ended up one mile inshore after the reclamation. There was also a significant amount of saltmarsh reclaimed at Burnham Overy. This process began in 1639 and was completed in 1859 with the building of the Wells sea wall extending from south to north along the harbour channel.

Question 35

When did land reclamation start on the North Norfolk Coast?

Answer 35

Reclamation was introduced to the United Kingdom in the 1580s. Some areas in north Norfolk were the first to be reclaimed from the sea for use in agriculture, using dykes and ditches.

Question 36

What was one of the main drivers for Blakeney Spit?

Answer 36

It is thought that the reclamation of saltmarsh for use in agriculture was one of the main drivers for the growth of Blakeney spit (and Scolt Head Island) at the eastern end of the frontage. The reclamation generated a series of barriers by limiting drift along the shoreline and restricting sediment transport rates transverse to the shore.

Question 37

Describe the type of flood and erosion defences along the North Norfolk Coastline.

Answer 37

Over half the defences along the north Norfolk coastline are earth embankments, commonly known as sea banks. Around 15 per cent of defences are classed as natural defences, either sand dunes or shingle ridges. Several of these defences protect private sections of land such as golf courses and nature reserves. Others are there to protect settlements from flooding. The quaysides of Wells-next-the-Sea and Blakeney are also classed as hard defences.

Question 38

Describe the most significant historic tidal flooding from the North Sea?

Answer 38

The most significant event was on the 31st of January and 1st of February 1953 . This event was the greatest storm surge recorded for the north sea, with the surge height reaching nearly three metres at Kings Lynn. Coastal defences from Yorkshire down to the Themes were breached.