Beach Erosion

In some cases coastal erosion has been made worse because of human intervention. This dredged area will be replenished with material, and this material will be taken from elsewhere along the coastline. This whole process is a continual process that causes erosion to occur faster that it previously did. Many things have been done to the coastline to slow the rate of erosion, but the construction of homes on the coast has made matters worse. This is also being accompanied by a new attitude towards coastal erosion of managed retreat. Today we have realized that in fact most of the methods we try are in fact causing more damage than good. Still these methods were carried out. Therefore, with the building of houses and other buildings and removal of offshore sand, erosion rates have increased throughout the coastline. With sea levels expected to rise in the future, and the coast slowly subsiding into the sea this new method involves construction retreating from the coast. Only has it been in the last 10 years that we have started to learn more and more about the coastal system. Removal of this gravel was thought to be a good method because no extra quarries had to open. The good news is that now the government is only protecting valuable areas that are under threat, and are refusing to give new licenses to dredge material from offshore (Factsheet). This means that the wave energy is concentrated more on the base of the cliffs, and the beaches cannot absorb as much energy from the waves as they originally did. This causes the sea to suffer from coastal erosion at an alarming rate, and long-shore drift is also present when this happens.