Innovation Project SLD2313
Development of an Educational Tool for Shoreline Management
Aim
To develop an educational tool to improve public understanding of the difficult decisions that need to be made in the management of our coasts and thereby assist in the uptake of more sustainable long term management policies.
Project Description
The UK coastline is subject to an increasing number of physical, environmental, social, and economic pressures. Balancing these when managing the coast leads to the concept of sustainability, involving choosing management approaches that are technically feasible, environmentally friendly, socially acceptable, and economically viable. The impacts of climate change upon the coast increase flooding and erosion hazards that threaten coastal assets. In many areas the coastline is eroding, and this, combined with an increased risk of coastal and freshwater flooding, can lead to the loss and / or damage to property and land as well as important habitats. Future climate changes will greatly increase the rate of change of our coastline, and maintaining the present status quo will not be an option for long term sustainable management.
As part of the development of Shoreline Management Plans and coastal defence strategy plans, it is apparent that many people’s expectations regarding long-term coastal defence policies are misguided. There is commonly a call to continue to “hold the existing defence line”, but this is often based on a perception that the shoreline will continue to look exactly as it does now, even after 100 years or more. In many, if not most, instances, this perception is simply incorrect. It is imperative that the public understand the nature of the likely future changes and the direct impacts that these will have upon coastal communities. This will facilitate the acceptance and uptake of future management policies involving retreat the line and no active intervention.
The aims of the project will be met through the development of a PC based program that highlights the issues that need to be balanced in order to achieve sustainable coastal management on coasts. The target groups for the program are flood defence practitioners, local authorities, insurers, universities and schools and the general public. The program will be based in a virtual 3D world. It will be very easy to use and will allow the user to explore many different management methods and to view the consequences of their actions. The program will incorporate a number of different published climate change scenarios. The program will be based upon the UKCIP02 ‘medium high’ and all options will use this scenario. However, during use users will be alerted to the consequences of their choices had another climate change scenario been in place. This will serve to both highlight the difference in impacts under different physical futures, and also the uncertainty inherent in management decisions. During play the program will randomly sample the climate scenarios (in terms of storm events) over the 100 year period of the program to provide a unique experience every time it is used.
The present project will meet the requirements of the Innovation Fund in a number of ways:
- Improving the future delivery of flood and coastal risk management schemes by ensuring that the public are aware of the issues that need to be balanced
- Removing blockages to the implementation of policies that involve realignment and no active intervention
- Allowing the reduction of risk by helping promote policies such as realignment and no active intervention
- Allowing environment and economic gains to be made by helping promote policies such as realignment and no active intervention
- Promoting an awareness of current legislation within a number of stakeholder groups
- Facilitating the greater engagement of local communities in coastal risk management
The program will benefit from previous development work undertaken to create the FloodRanger game. This proposal will use a similar approach to FloodRanger but apply it to the wider field of shoreline management planning. The program will simulate policy development of 100 years (concurrent with the latest SMP procedural guidance). It will be designed to be impartial and the rule base and assumptions will be explicitly stated in the user guidance (clearly written, this in itself will assist the user in understanding the issues facing coastal managers). Consultation with a number of stakeholders will be undertaken to ensure that the rule base has the backing of a range of interest groups (e.g. government departments such as Defra, government agencies such as the EA, conservation organisations such as EN, local authorities, local communities).
The new program requires consideration of a number of additional elements to the original Flood Ranger game, including:
- Eroding coasts as sediment sources
- The importance of beaches as natural flood defences
- Additional defence types
- Additional features (e.g. coastal habitats)
- The concept of erosion risk bands
- The consequences of coastal squeeze
- The consequences of interrupting longshore transport
- The requirement to compensate for habitat losses
- A written output that will provide users with feedback on the consequences of their decisions, in order to understand why certain actions may not deliver sustainability, and learn from them so they try different approaches next time they use the program.
- A new user manual and technical guide
The program will represent a suitable length of virtual coastline and will include the key considerations including:
- Areas of open coastline and estuaries
- Areas of high/low land
- Areas of high/low flooding risk
- Areas of high/low coastal erosion risk
- Areas of erodable/ non-erodable cliffs
- Eroding/accreting areas
- Urban/rural area
- Various habitat types including sand dunes, shingle beaches, sand beaches, barriers, saltmarshes, freshwater marshes
- Different funding arrangement for local authorities (e.g. debt free authorities, non debt free authorities)
- Local and central funding
- Industrial areas such as ports
- Tourism dependant areas
The program will illustrate a number of key aspects of shoreline management planning including inter alia, the impacts of:
- Climate change e.g. rising sea levels, increased storminess, increased winter precipitation
- Conserving no/all freshwater habitats
- Having to compensate for habitat loss
- Defending everywhere/nowhere
- Coastal squeeze against defences or high land
- Maintaining the same levels of defence under higher sea levels and wave action
- Limiting sediment inputs (e.g. by defending eroding cliffs)
- Reducing longshore transport (e.g. by installing beach groynes)
Project Duration
20 months
Project Leader
Dr Nigel Pontee, Halcrow Group
Page last modified: 10 January 2007
Page published: 4 January 2007