Dawlish Warren coastal management strategies; reviewing recent plans with the perception from the local population

Abstract

Coastal management is an important matter to take into consideration. Many organisations associated with managing the coastline will request the assistance of their country’s government for instance. One example is the hope that they can acquire the funds to help amend the sea defences which begin to fail. The sea defence schemes that prove to be successful are due to the correct analysis of the area having taken place. Appropriate management of the coastline is even more imperative when potentially people’s lives are at risk. Those scientists who are backing more frequent stormy events, along with sea level rise, will emphasise that for many areas on a global scale the appropriate sea defence is essential. The IPCC and NASA are organisations who greatly emphasise that climate change is very much befalling. Nasa affirm on their webpage, 2013 that factors such as glacial retreat, warming oceans and ocean acidification are all other factors pointing towards an altering global climate.
Those sceptical of global warming believe that the current sea level rise is the direct result of the phenomena known as the North Atlantic oscillation. This phenomena is one that significantly influences the winter weather in Europe and some scientists have proclaimed that a ‘locking’ into one of the mode’s for a number of years can result in shifts in the climate of Europe. Either way there is a general unanimity that sea level rise is happening along with increases in storminess, resulting in more erosion of the coasts and their associated coastal features. There are four approaches of coastal management which are considered, deciding on which is the most appropriate scheme to utilise requires an understanding of the system and careful observation. The first approach is to ‘Hold the Line’ and this entails maintaining existing defences with no new defences being constructed. There is then ‘Advancing the line’ which focuses on constructing defences further out at sea to reduce the stress applied to the onshore defences. ‘Retreating the line/managed retreat’ is a form in which Mother Nature is allowed to advance further inland; this is a viable option when people are relocated from the surrendered zone. The last approach is the ‘Do Nothing’ approach; however, this will usually be applied to areas where there are no people and nothing of economic value to protect.