Southeast Regional Coastal Monitoring Programme
Management strategy
The whole of the shoreline of England and Wales has been categorised by reference to four broad management strategies, for the purposes of shoreline management planning; these categories have been used as a variable within the risk assessment, for the design of the monitoring programme. A second generation of shoreline management plans commenced in 2002 the management categories may be developed further as a result. The categories considered within programme design are:
- Hold the line
- Beach management plans
- Advance the line
- Retreat the line
- Do nothing
Historically, regular coastal monitoring has generally only taken place at a few sites, normally associated with hold-the-line management category sites. This programme makes provision for monitoring at sites within all management categories, although the monitoring at do nothing sites is to a lower frequency and spatial interval than at managed sites. Sites with a retreat the line or advance the line management policy are relatively infrequent within the region (km), but information requirements for these sites are equally as important as for the hold the line sites.
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| Copyright AP Bradbury |
Although much of the coastline within the programme area is not defended (530km), information is still needed from these sites to provide an overview of large scale coastal process systems, sediment circulation patterns and interaction between defended and undefended shorelines. Better understanding of the performance of natural systems will also help provide data for development of more appropriate management methods for defended sites.
Beach management plans
Beach recharge, recycling, and the use of sediment control structures are becoming increasingly popular methods of shoreline management. This trend towards management of dynamic systems means that more data is required in support of decision making.
A further generic shoreline management category has been added to the 4 categories usually used in shoreline management (for the programme design risk assessment); this makes provision for detailed data collection at sites where active beach management takes place e.g. beach recycling or beach recharge.
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| Copyright David Bowie photography |
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| Copyright AP Bradbury |
Beach recycling using dump trucks is often an extremely cost efficient method of maintaining beaches to design standards.
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| Copyright AP Bradbury |
Intervention may be needed in beach management schemes on a more regular basis than with hard defences, but the approach is generally significantly more financially sustainable than the use of hard defences, such as sea walls. The dynamic nature of soft defence systems, such as beach recharge, provides a highly adaptable system, responding naturally to changes in wave climate and sea level. Modification of the design of beach management systems is also very straightforward as the systems are highly adaptable. Much of the shoreline of the southeast is comprised of gravel or mixed sand and gravel beaches. Most of the recently constructed sea defence schemes within the southeast include beach recharge and/or sediment control structures.
Additional information is needed at these sites to quantify inputs from beach recharge or beach recycling, which make a significant contribution to the sediment budget and sediment transport. Assessment of the performance of beach management sites can be very misleading if they are considered exclusively on the basis of natural changes, without data identifying when and where material has been artificially moved.
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| Copyright AP Bradbury |
Although physical and numerical models are valuable management tools they are limited and not well developed for use on either shingle or, more particularly, mixed sand and gravel beaches. For instance, models are unable to reproduce the effects of variable permeability arising from mixing of beach materials during material placement; this often results in beach cliffing, which can result in both hydraulic and recreational problems. Decision-making is reliant upon good quality field measurements therefore. The field measurements are also of considerable value to aid the development of modelling techniques.
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| Copyright AP Bradbury |
