Cycling the North Sea

In May this year Dutchmen Jos Wassink (50) and Koos Termorshuizen (54) mounted their fully packed bicycles for a three-month tour around the North Sea. The 6,328 kilometre long tour, counter clockwise around the North Sea by the nearest routes to the shoreline took them to many countries to visit seriously eroded and damaged sections of the coastline, declined fisheries as well as offshore windfarms, CO₂ sequestration projects, test locations for coastal defence and fishery projects.

Jos Wassink is a science writer, with more than a decade of experience producing for public television and radio. Last year he published the book Energierevolutie (Energy revolution) on sustainable energy projects in the Netherlands. Koos Termorshuizen is an economist and a independent market researcher. Apart from that, he is also a hobby photographer. Daily they reported to the Dutch newspaper 'De Pers', Radio Netherlands World Service and VROM.nl, the magazine of the Dutch Ministry of the Environment.

On route, the met with marine biologists, wind turbine constructors, fish farmers, energy pioneers, civil engineers and many people living and working by the coast. They took photographs and made Interviews with them on the problems encountered and discussed their views to help reveal what a more sustainable future could like if the will were there.

In mid July for two days Jos and Koos were the guests of MARINET's Pat and Norma Gowen at their bungalow at Hemsby close to the North Sea when they were taken by their hosts to see the Scroby offshore wind farm, to visit rapidly eroding Happisburgh, Winterton and Hemsby, the experimental rock reefs at Sea Palling, the sub-sea levels at Eccles, Horsey, Waxham and the low laying Brograve Levels,to the wind pumps ('windmills') long introduced by the Dutch and the vulnerable parts of the Norfolk Broads threatened with loss due to the dictates of the managed retreat policy and continuing offshore aggregate dredging. This came as rather a shock to them, coming from a country where protection of the coastline and marine eco-system is paramount, as their ancestors came to Norfolk to show us how to save the land from the sea. Their website at www.northseacycling.com is well worth a visit, as it contains much of direct relevance to the North Sea coast and marine environment, and gives the daily 'blogs'.

From their daily blog — 13th July — Daring the Dredgers

The sea is eating away the East-Anglian coast at an alarming rate. Locally, more than hundred meters have been lost to the sea thus far. Local activist Pat Gowen blames the dredging works that have been going on at only some miles off the coast.

At Happisburgh, a row of houses is standing right at the end of the cliff. They are deserted now, since the inhabitants have been forced to leave their property for their own security. At the end of the backyard, there is a grid fence. Behind it, there is a 30 foot perpendicular drop onto the beach below.

The cliffs are sandy here. Once the waves reach the bottom of the cliff, which usually happens in February storms, whole chunks will break away from the cliff and plunge into the waves, which will then wash away the sand into the sea.

Imported blocks of granite from Norway have been put on the shoreline to reduce the rate of erosion. This seems to work a bit. Further on, where no rocks have been put, the erosion has gone dozens of meters further, eating away the edge of a potato field.

Photos in the tiny museum in a container below the Coastwatch tower at Winterton show collapsed houses on the beach, shattered to flotsam by the beating waves. On historic aerial photographs, new coastlines have been drawn ever further inland. They tell the same story over and again: the coast here gives way to the sea, at loss of buildings at the edge. Particularly so since the nineteen-seventies.

Pat Gowen (77) from Norwich bought his first bungalow here in 1978. Ten years later he lost it — to the sea. Standing at a dune-top at Hemsby, he points at some wooden poles sticking out of the water. They are part of an historic shipwreck which was hidden under the sand right below Gowen's first bungalow. “That is where our bungalow was. There were two more lines of houses in front of it. In total 118 meters of coast have been lost here.” Of the 98 holiday homes in the dunes at Hemsby, only six are left — one of which is inhabited by Pat and Norma Gowen, their second second home here.

Is this coastal erosion a natural phenomenon, or are other factors involved? Gowen acknowledges that nature gives and takes, but the erosion here has increased 'dramatically' since the early seventies, he argues. And that coincides with the dredging activities some miles off the coast here. Before, beaches have been known to grow and extend ever further into sea.

Dredging here is done to win coarse grained sand, which is used for building material (70 percent), export (27 percent) and for sand supplementation to the beaches (only 3 percent) — data from the Marinet website. Part of the exported sand allegedly goes to the Netherlands to ironically supplement the loss of sand at the Dutch beaches and dunes.

Henk Jan Verhagen, who is a lecturer at the faculty of Civil Engineering of the Delft University of Technology, denies this. Dutch beaches are suppleted with sand, not with shingle, he says. Shingle is imported, but for cement production mainly and not for beach reinforcement.

Gowen argues that dredging close to the coast increases the power of waves coming into the shore, thus making erosion worse. Verhagen says that in order for that to happen, dredging must be really close to the coast. In the Netherlands a 10 kilometre safety zone has been imposed, theoretically 5 kilometre would be safe as well.

Fishermen also complain about dredging, saying that sand mining at sea destroys the habitat and spawning grounds for fish, resulting in a decline in fish populations and catches. Overfishing is not considered as a possible cause by them.

Naturally, the dredging industry is in denial of the allegations, quoting 'independent scientific studies' that say the coastal currents are only marginally influenced by dredging and that dredged areas are shown to naturally restore within five years to their original state. Besides, the area affected by dredging is tiny compared to the total surface of the sea bed.

“These scientists are all hand picked, paid for and controlled by the dredging industry”, growls Pat Gowen. As a typical left-wing activist, he sees a conspiracy between government and industry based on monetary gain, in contempt of the environment and the humble properties of the people at the coast.

Gowen has tried to stop the dredging, but with little result so far — dredgers have just moved on a bit. He also works on including Marine Protection Areas (no fishing, no dredging, no drilling) at 30 percent of the North Sea in the so-called Marine Bill, that is to be passed by the UK Parliament later this year. But he has little hope of the MPAs being accepted. Again, vested interests are strongly opposed to the idea.

In the meantime, the coastal protection measures taken thus far are less than impressive. A number of granite banks have been put in front of the endangered shore of Sea Palling to break the waves. But most of the banks have already partially sunk into the sand. Only the most recent three are still visible above the water.

Compared to the Dutch dunes at North Holland, the dunes here are quite low and not very broad. It would seem they could do with some fortifications measures, as indeed have been taken in the Netherlands at places where the natural dunes were judged to be insufficient.

Verhagen explains the limited measures by pointing out that previously coastal protection measures were a local and not a national responsibility, which limited funds and knowledge as a result. Now that coastal protection is a national responsibility in the UK, local authorities only get the means to get things done if they can show the costs are lower than the benefit. This obviously begs the question of how to validate farmland or the ecological value of endangered areas.

Gowen has proposed methods of chemically solidifying sand beaches and the use of under water groins as extra protection measures. The groins are to stimulate sand deposition by the sea water. But again — his proposals gained little support. Experts doubt the effectiveness of the measures, although Gowen says these innovative methods have been tested in the USA.

The British government seems reluctant to invest in major coastal defence here. The question remains why. Marinet, Gowen's action group (Marine Information Network), suggests in a film that coastal protection of this region is simply too expensive. Parts of East-Anglia, the film says, are on a secret list of land to be given back to the sea. This 'managed retreat' is based on the balance between the value of the protected land and the costs needed to protect it, especially in face of the global warming and sea level rise. The outcome of this balance of course depends on your position: either living at the edge of a cliff in East-Anglia or in a London office.