Shifting Shorelines: Coping with Global Warming in the UK
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 02.28.06
Britain's National Trust "protects and opens to the public over 300 historic houses and gardens and 49 industrial monuments and mills." but it also "looks after forests, woods, fens, beaches, farmland, downs, moorland, islands, archaeological remains, castles, nature reserves, and villages", many of which are under threat from changing weather and rising waters. Says Director Fiona Reynolds: "Climate change has implications for just about everything the National Trust does. We have to learn from our recent experiences of floods, storm damage and seasonal change and recognise that the ways in which we look after our properties will increasingly be led by the impacts of a changing climate. Climate change is a here and now issue and we need to adapt to it fast"
In the past few years the Trust has dealt with tornadoes in the Lakes District, flash flooding in Boscastle, significant water damage from torrential rains and over 7 million pounds in insurance claims. They forecast that "Over the next century, it is forecast that some 15 per cent of the Trust’s 700 miles of coastline will have eroded by as much as 100m, raising significant issues about how to enable the shoreline and all the interests there to adjust to rising sea levels and associated erosion and flooding."
The National Trust owns over 10% of the coastline of England, Wales and Northern Ireland and is worried. "Society cannot ignore climate change. Its impacts are being felt already and they will become more widespread."
And what are we doing here in North America to preserve our history in the face of climate change? We are not certain that they have even started documenting the damage from Katrina, let alone make preparations for the future.
::National Trust via ::Guardian , thanks Tipster Bonnie!
everyone oughtta read Bruce Sterling's Distractions when it comes to shorelines and climate chaneg... ok it's an aside in the book (about an inVitro bred political campaign manager) but when said campaigner needs a break he goes to "the beach." That scene is etched in my memory now as a probable outcome of what we're facing... it ain't pretty. and like you said LLoyd it's already happening...
It is not that we are doing nothing to protect our coastal cultural and environmental heritage, it's that everything we are doing is worse than nothing. Dredging navigational channels and offshore sand mining for beach nourishment is documented in international research (including that of the worst offender on this, the Corps of Engineers) to cause more erosion and environmental harm. Traditionally engineered coastal "protection" structures only add to the loss of our shorelines.
Most of this loss is directly the result of man's actions. As such, we must mitigate this loss as we would any other manmade environmental problem.
We do have methods proven to be effective, sustainable and environmentally sound as Holmberg Technologies (www.erosion.com). There are also new innovative concepts. One of these employs as a biochemical method to neutralize a certain class of pollutants shown to make shorelines sediments less stable.
Unless we can get the Corps to abandon their all too close friends in the dredging and coastal consultant industries and adopt such successful methods as above, our shorelines and the ecosystems these sustain are lost.