Coastal Management

Coastal management refers to the monitoring, maintenance and protection of the coastline as well as developing strategies designed to protect the coasts for future generations. However, human activity combined with natural processes such as erosion, deposition and transportation are slowly damaging our coasts and the land surrounding it. Luckily, solutions and strategies such as beach nourishment, sea walls and offshore breakwaters have been devised to manage these processes in a sustainable way to protect our coastlines from further damage and destruction.

Erosion is the wearing away of rock, sand and soil by the wind and water along the shoreline. Destructive waves occur when the backwash is stronger than the swash, and are associated with Erosion as they violently rip the rock, sand and soil from the beach in the backwash. The landforms typically identified with erosion include wavecut platforms, blowholes, sea caves, sea stacks, headlands and bays.

Deposition is the complete opposite of erosion, as it is the laying down of sand and rock particles. The waves identified with deposition are constructive waves, where the swash is stronger than the backwash. The swash carries particles up the beach and the backwash isn’t strong enough to carry those particles back to the ocean. Beaches, coastal lagoons, sandspits, sand dunes and tombolos are examples of depositional landforms along the coast.

Transportation is the movement of sand and rock particles by the wind and the water. Longshore drift is an example of transportation as it is the movement of sediment along the beach due to the waves approaching the shoreline at an oblique angle, causing the sand to move horizontally along the shoreline. The landform associated with transportation is the horizontal movement of sand and rock particles resulting in uneven beaches and shorelines.