The UK’s coastline is constantly changing and evolving, thanks to the complex interaction of geomorphology, tides and wave energy.
It is notoriously difficult to analyse this evolution, but knowing what may happen in the future is essential to developing environmentally sustainable and economically viable coastal defence planning for the next 100 years.
In 2000, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the National Assembly for Wales commissioned Halcrow to develop Futurecoast, a completely new way of predicting shoreline evolution. The analysis it contains gives a better understanding of coastal systems and their characteristics, and it is now being used to create the next generation of shoreline management plans.
Futurecoast used a “behavioural systems” approach that identifies all the different elements that make up the coastal structure and develops an understanding of how these elements interact. It assessed the impact on the coastline assuming two scenarios: that the coastline remains unmanaged; and that present management practices continue indefinitely.
The main component of the study is an analysis of future shoreline evolution potential for every section of the coast of England and Wales that provides an improved understanding of the coastal systems and their behavioural characteristics.
The results are presented on an interactive CD that has 3,000 pages of analysis, over 70,000 mapped features and around 140,000 links. Users can quickly access the specific information they want on any subject relating to the area they are interested in, and use it to compile maps and reports.
In addition, we have produced two further CDs containing aerial photographs covering the entire 6,000km coastline. These aerial images are accessed via a digital interactive map-based viewing system, which makes it easy to locate any section of coast.
As part of the project, Halcrow also produced a “toolbox” of supporting information and data that can be used in future assessments of shoreline behaviour, and a series of thematic reports covering onshore and offshore geology, coastal processes, estuaries and climate change.