The English Heritage Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Surveys
Coasts are dynamic but historic assets are fixed. English Heritage is commissioning a series of coastal surveys to characterize the resource and help conserve it.
Historic assets on the coast are vulnerable to the effects of natural coastal change and to the impacts of coastal management schemes. Besides this, coasts are under pressure from industrial and port expansion, and residential and recreational developments.
Shoreline Management Plans are the strategic plans that set the long-term policy for coastal management (McInnes 2003, 50-61). An SMP should “provide the basis for policies for a length of coast and set the framework for managing risks along the coastline in the future” and “identify the best approach or approaches … over the next 100 years” (Defra 2006, 11). Defra has defined four possible options for lengths of coast known as Policy Units:
- ‘Hold the existing defence line’;
- ‘Advance the existing defence line’;
- ‘Managed realignment’; and
- ‘No active intervention’.
‘Managed realignment’ involves breaching sea defences, (some of them of considerable antiquity), groundworks for a new sea-wall and/or new drainage systems, all of which may damage archaeological sites. ‘No active intervention’ permits continued erosion, which may have impacts on historic buildings, sites and landscapes. The first two options may also have some effects: defence improvement frequently involve contractors’ excavations, and land-claim results in burial and compaction of foreshore sites.
Selection of the preferred option arises from a process of stakeholder consultation and depends on balancing a wide range of factors in a sustainable way. English Heritage initiated the programme of Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Surveys, to provide the evidence base for its responses. By the end of 2007 surveys had been completed or were under way along the entire east coast, from Berwick to the North Foreland in Kent, in north-west England between the Dee and Solway, in the Severn estuary, Dorset, and the Isles of Wight and Scilly. At the time of writing, Briefs to undertake survey of the remaining parts of South East and South West England are under development, in collaboration with Local Authority and other historic environment professionals in those areas.
The RCZAS have two main phases. Phase 1 (Desk-based Assessment) draws on data from aerial photographs, LiDAR, historic maps, the local authority Historic Environment Records, the National Monuments Record and other sources. Phase 2 (Field Assessment) comprises a rapid walk-over survey, designed to verify records from Phase 1, locate and characterise site types not visible from the air, assess significance and vulnerability. The outputs will comprise enhanced local authority Historic Environment Records and the digital transfer to the National Monuments Record of data, together with a client report (or reports) for English Heritage, which are available on http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.18390 Aspects of the results will also be presented in talks, leaflets and other publications (e.g. Hegarty and Newsome 2007).
The information gained will permit us to make a more informed input to SMP consultation and will help to ensure effective mitigation of the effects of coastal change through the 21st century. It will also provide a data-base which may be used for further research and in the development control process
Peter Murphy, English Heritage, June 2008
(Photo copyright Peter Murphy)
References
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) 2006. Shoreline Management Plan Guidance. Volume 1: Aims and Requirements and Volume 2: Procedures (London: Defra).
Hegarty, C. and Newsome, S. 2007. Suffolk’s Defended Shore. Coastal Fortifications from the Air. London: English Heritage/Suffolk County Council.
McInnes, R. 2003. Coastal Defence: a Non-Technical Guide. Ventnor: Standing Conference on Problems Associated with the Coast (SCOPAC).