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Benefits of Coastal Monitoring
Coastal zone managers are faced with difficult and complex choices about how best to reduce property damage along the shoreline. One of the problems they face is error and uncertainty in the information available to them on the processes that cause erosion of beaches. Therefore the location of the shoreline and its changing position over time is of fundamental importance. Present day shoreline monitoring provide information about historic shoreline location and movement, and about predictions of future change.
More specifically the position of the shoreline in the past, at present and where it is predicted to be in the future is useful in the design of coastal protection, to calibrate and verify numerical models to assess sea level rise, map hazard zones and formulate policies to regulate coastal development. Accurate and consistent delineation of the shoreline is integral to all of these tasks. The location of the shoreline also provides information regarding shoreline reorientation adjacent to structures, beach width, volume and rates of historical change.
Monitoring on a piecemeal basis is both expensive and un co-ordinated. If monitoring is overseen on a much larger scale then economies of scale and co-operation come into force.
In the Uk regional maritime Local Authorities and the Environment Agency,
together with other organisations with related responsibilities, have recognised the need for coastal monitoring on a regional scale to improve the long-term and wide-scale understanding of coastal
processes and shoreline change across coastal cells.
The data provide through these regional coastal monitoring programmes will also help enable the set-up,
calibration and verification of numerical models that are used in initiatives such as Tidal Flood
Forecasting Systems and physical coastal process assessments, thereby improving confidence in
their outputs.
The particular advantages of such a region-wide understanding are:
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Delivery of continuous improvement in shoreline management, by continually building
knowledge and understanding of how the coast behaves and evolves, the philosophy of
Defra’s Shoreline Management Plan Guidance will be delivered.
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Selection of the most suitable SMP policies or Coastal Strategy options – by providing
improved coastal data more quantitative information on mechanisms and rates of coastal change will mean that uncertainties are reduced and consequently policies or options will be
selected that have greater sustainability in the longer-term.
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Improved phasing of schemes – improved understanding of the behaviour of the coastal
systems will mean that schemes can be constructed at more appropriate timings, avoiding
implementation earlier than they need be, under an overly precautionary approach, or later
than they should have been, under a purely reactive approach involving emergency works.
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Improved scheme design – reduced uncertainties and improved measured data from the
nearshore zone will mean that defences will be better designed to particular marine
parameters, such as more appropriate crest levels to reduce overtopping risk, or foundation
levels to reduce undermining risk form beach level changes.
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Enhance operational management and maintenance regimes – the context provided by
the regional coastal monitoring data to local activities will provide opportunities in terms of
operational management and maintenance regimes that are more tailored to local issues,
such as seasonal beach level fluctuations, and also the implications of wider scale changes,
such as longer term trends of erosion or accretion. |
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