Are we waving goodbye to Britain?

David Montgomery, Science Correspondent, The Scotsman, 3 February 2001

The Old Course at St Andrews and the White Cliffs of Dover would appear to have very little in common.

While one symbolises British defiance to things foreign across the English Channel, the other is a soft, undulating stretch of Fife coastline heralded as the home of golf.

Yet both are victims of the unceasing attention of the waters which lap around these isles, threatening to undermine the very existence of long stretches of shoreline.

The loss of a quarter-mile section of the White Cliffs into the sea at St Margaret’s Bay, just east of Dover, on Thursday, is the latest sign that Britain’s coastline is rapidly washing away.

It is a process predicted to increase dramatically as climate change leads to rising sea levels and more frequent storms.

Last month, a UN report said average global temperatures could rise by up to 5.8 degrees Celsius over the 21st century, much higher than previously thought. Sea level rise as a result of global warming is predicted to be around 15-30 cm by 2050.

The gradual lifting of the land in Scotland due to ice unloading is being overtaken by acceleration of sea level rise. As a result, cases of coastal erosion damage and demand for improved coastal defences are increasing. These scenarios of change mean the future of Scotland’s coastline is uncertain.

While Scotland is without the fractured chalk and limestone cliffs found in the south, it has large areas which are equally fragile along its 6,000 miles of coastline.

Not least the Old Course and its sister links where coastal defences are being fortified with tonnes of sand brought in to prevent further erosion.

And it’s not just St Andrews - nearly 70 per cent of the UK’s 50 links courses are facing a serious threat from erosion or flooding. However, despite the cultural and tourism value of such sites, many experts believe costly and often ineffective measures to stem the march of nature are ultimately fruitless.

Jim Hansom, of Glasgow University’s geography department and head of the Coastal Research Group, said human attempts to halt erosion often exacerbated the problem - and it was just not possible to act like King Canute and stop the tide.

“It could be said golf courses are fairly low intensity land uses that can be shifted,” he added “So why protect sites on the coast that we may well do better to move inland, especially if they exacerbate the erosion? We have to accept some bits will be lost on the outer coast.”

Mr Hansom said “chucking good money after bad” was not a solution, adding: “It’s just a matter of time before we chuck in the towel when such measures become too expensive.

“The key is in inducing people to move to areas that are not subject to coastal erosion.”

The East coast of Scotland and the Northern and Western Isles, have all been identified as being particularly at risk of erosion, especially the Machair on Lewis, the Uists and Harris.

They are made up of relatively soft material which reacts very quickly to the forces of tides and storms.

Making the problem worse is the fact that the sediment supply - vital to prevent widespread coastal erosion - is drying up, further receding the shoreline.

Mr Hansom said building protective barriers around golf courses and property stopped the incursion of the sea, but started a chain reaction that exported erosion: "In many ways natural shoreline problems are exacerbated by slight sea level rises. By our own hands we are protecting bits of coast but that will accelerate erosion elsewhere."

Over the last 350 years, 50 per cent of reclaimed farmland around the Firth of Forth has been lost back to the sea. Now, rather than “fighting” against rising water levels, scientists are looking at giving up other areas of former salt marsh in managed realignment schemes. Mr Hansom said: “We need to work with nature and adjust with it. Ultimately, building sea walls higher and higher is not sustainable.”

This view was backed by Dr John Rees, head of coastal geosciences at the British Geological Survey. He said that defence systems were able to slow down erosion for short periods but over the long-term - decades and centuries - there was little that could be done to prevent the sea’s incursions.

“This is what people don’t seem to appreciate. We can put a lot of concrete down around the coast to stop it receding for a while, but erosion will continue," he said. "This creates steeper shore faces until eventually there will be a catastrophic failure.”

Dr Rees said planning authorities and decision-makers had to get their heads around the reality that it was impossible to stop erosion. He said this demanded better planning including not building on cliff-tops.

“Erosion is quite important for coastal sustainability. In East Anglia there are bad rates of erosion for cliffs, but that material ends up in the Thames estuary where it provides a better line of defence against future storm surges,” he said. “It may not make the owners of homes on cliff-tops in East Anglia very happy, but it certainly should for eight million Londoners.”