Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
3
'Managed realignment' of the coastline by
progressively abandoning land and defence
structures and recreating ecologically valuable
intertidal habitats previously lost through
coastal erosion.
Komar (1976) and Pethick (1984), although both
are now starting to show their age. Carter (1988)
is highly comprehensive, while Viles and Spencer
(1995) covers tropical environments; both include
a strong engagement with coastal management
issues. For a more detailed exposition of the
complexities of shoreline evolution, Carter and
Woodroffe (1994) contains much excellent
material. The
Journal of Coastal Research
is the most
accessible and generally useful periodical for
keeping up to date with coastal research issues. The
Sixth Report of the UK House of Commons
Select Committee on Agriculture (1998) provides
a fascinating insight into contemporary coastal
management issues in the UK: whether it acts as a
catalyst for change or lies unopened in unvisited
archives remains to be seen.
Until now, for political reasons there has been a
marked reluctance for governments at all levels in
developed countries to embrace option 3.
However, the huge cost of strengthening existing
sea defences in the face of accelerated sea level rise
over the next century may force this option to be
considered more seriously than hitherto. If so, then
the coastal geomorphologist should have an
important role to play in formulating the design
rules for new, 'semi-natural' coastlines by building
into them an understanding of the space-time
dynamics of coastal processes.
The wider social and economic evaluation of
all these options is, of course, not straightforward.
Evaluations are strongly time- and area-specific:
thus, for example, a scheme that may be sustainable
on a twenty-year planning horizon may not be
acceptable on a two-year timescale, and action that
may be sensible in the context of regional
shoreline change may produce unacceptable local
impacts. Implementation will also bring with it a
need to prioritise coastal management options on
a year-to-year basis; one way to establish a priority
list would be to evaluate levels of risk for coastal
communities. In addition, there will be a need for
the formulation of long-term adaptive policies to
lessen the risk to persons and property from
flooding and coastal erosion. Such plans will need
to offer compensation to those individuals who
sacrifice property and land assets in order to
improve natural flood defence elsewhere. The
building of such a framework will clearly be a
major challenge at the start of the twenty-first
century for all those concerned with
understanding coastal landscapes and their peoples.
REFERENCES
Bird, E.C.F. (1985)
Coastline Changes: A Global Review.
Chichester: J.Wiley.
Bird, E.C.F. (1993)
Submerging Coasts.
Chichester: J.Wiley.
Brammer, H. (1993) Geographical complexities of detailed
impact assessment for the Ganges-Brahmaputra-
Meghna delta of Bangladesh. In R.A.Warwick,
E.M.Burrows and T.M.L.Wigley (eds)
Climate and Sea
Level Change: Observations, Projections and Implications.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 246-62.
Bray, M.J., Carter, D.J. and Hooke, J.M. (1992) Coastal
sediment transport study.
Report to SOPAC,
Portsmouth: University of Portsmouth.
Bruun, P. (1962) Sea level rise as a cause of shore erosion.
Journal of Waterways and Harbor Division, Proceedings of
the American Society of Civil Engineers
88, 117-30.
Burd, F. (1995)
Managed Retreat: A Practical Guide.
Peterborough: English Nature.
Carter, R.W.G. (1988)
Coastal Environments.
London:
Academic Press.
Carter, R.W.G. and Woodroffe, C.D. (1994)
Coastal
Evolution: Late Quaternary Shoreline Morphodynamics.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coastal Engineering Research Center (1984)
Shore
Protection Manual
(4th edition). Washington DC: US
Government Printing Office.
Davidson, A.T., Nicholls, R.J. and Leatherman, S.P. (1992)
Beach nourishment as a coastal management tool: an
annotated bibliography on developments associated
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
Two well-organised and well-argued texts on
coastal geomorphological processes are those by
