The Holderness coast experiences a lot of erosion and therefore various measures have been taken to protect it. A Sea Wall has been built at Mapleton where the coastline has been eroding rapidly, threatening the buildings in the villages. Large rock groynes have been built at either end of the wall to trap material moving along the coasts. However, the construction of the rock groynes and other groynes along the coast has made problems of coastal erosion worse further along the Holderness Coast. The beaches at Witherness and other places on the Southern part of the Holderness Coast have been deprived of sediment, as the groynes have trapped the sediment, which would have been moved along the coast by process of long shore drift. Deprived of sediment, the beaches have become smaller, opening the cliffs to the full force of the sea. This has led to accelerated erosion on the coastline. In some places, between 10 and 20 metres of land were eroded within a few years.
Another one of my aims was to determine why coastlines are managed. I was aware already that there are many different reasons for this and can now verify what they are.
Why Are The Coastlines Managed?
A high proportion of the world’s population live in towns and cities located on the coast. In some places this is a large number, for example 1,170 people in Bacton whereas in some places it is a lot less. E.g. 340 people in Trimingham. Many people depend on the sea for their livelihood such as fishing and port activities. See Fig. 17 showing fishing boats in Sherringham. Also, properties along or close to the coast need to be protected from the dangers of flooding or cliff collapse. See Fig. 6. It shows active mudflow in Happisburgh as well as Fig. 22, which is sketch map of Clifton Way showing the house on top of a cliff top, in danger of cliff collapse. Conversely, Bracton is not in any danger of slumping the cliffs there are low cliffs. Bracton needs protecting due to the Bracton Gas Terminal, they can’t risk having the gas pipes ruptured. The Bracton Coast is ‘Dynamic,’ the coast is never the same, it is always changing.
Sea Palling is a low-lying area and is therefore prone to flooding. In 1953, the area flooded and a big storm destroyed 6,000 hectares of land. After the storm, the beach level dropped a great deal as it removed a lot of material.
Furthermore, the coastline is an important tourist destination, for example Sherringham. Uncontrolled development (hotels, roads, etc) can readily lead to unsustainable tourism where ecosystems are damaged, for example the fresh water marshes in Cley-next-the-sea.
The construction industry extracts huge amounts of sand and gravel from the sea floor just of the coast in order to produce cement and concrete. The extractions sites need to fit into the natural sediment transfer system to avoid possible harmful knock-on effects elsewhere along the coast.
The natural coastal environments such as the sand dunes in Sea Palling and landforms need protection and conservation if they are not to be damaged.
Recent climate change is causing sea levels to rise in some parts of the world. Flooding of low-level land adjacent to the coast is now more likely, resulting in the need for coastal management to plan well inland from the land/sea margin. With increased storminess predicted, coastal erosion may well increase in certain localities, increasing the threat of cliff collapse.
A lot of my aims have already been answered in my Analysis and Explanation. For example “Why do they sometimes do nothing?” However, despite this investigation being a success, there are many things I could have done to either improve it or extend it further.
I could have looked at old maps, perhaps showing land use and compared it to today’s maps. Maybe they would have shown some differences and what consequences the coastal processes really have on the coastal environment.
Also, a lot of my information was extracted from my beach sketches and field notes. However, there may been something that I did not notice and therefore it wouldn’t have shown up in my sketches. On the other hand, I overcame this problem by taking lots of photographs and comparing them to the sketches. However, even the photographs had many limitations. The weather may have affected the result of the photograph as well as the time of day.
Overall, most of my data that I collected was useful and I used it as best as I could. There were many things that I did not use as it was not necessary, like the pebble measurements but this did not affect my investigation.
