Pat Gowen – Can you assist my research into the causes of coastal erosion? – Mar 2013

It is slowly coming to our knowledge that there are many people out there threatened with the loss of their homes and businesses by the harsh imposition of the Shoreline Management plan where many vital areas of the coastline have been denied sea defences.

Whilst I have good input on the severe erosion from Humberside down to Felixstowe on the North Sea coast, I hear little or none of what is happening over the remainder of the country, especially the South Coast where I understand third-hand that beaches, defences and dunes are being lost

If you live by the coast or regularly patrol your local beach, or even go there for the odd day out, I would like to hear from you your findings, including any comment that has appeared in your local press. If you don’t have that information, I am sure that a conversation with the local inhabitants and fishermen will promptly provide this, the latter maybe providing bottom seabed sounder figures too.

In particular, I would like to learn:

  1. Has your beach lost sand cover and/or has experienced a nearing of the mean high tide mark over the past few years?
  2. Has your beach steepened over the past few years?
  3. Has the offshore sea depth increased recently?
  4. Can you assess the degree of these by providing assured figures or even an estimate?
  5. Do you know of any aggregate dredging sites, past or currently active within 25 miles?
  6. If yes, their annual take ?

I am keen to establish whether it is only coastlines with offshore dredging adjacent that are suffering erosion, and to know whether there are any places which are experiencing erosion although no dredging is taking place nearby, and whether there are any coastal areas with dredging sites offshore that are not eroding, in order to try produce a correlation graph such as you can see towards the tail end of our main briefing on Offshore Aggregate Dredging under ‘Correlations of Offshore Dredging levels with Coastal Losses’ .

If you can assist with this data needed, please send to email hidden; JavaScript is required plus copies of any back-up papers.

Best wishes,

Pat

 


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