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- Permanent Link:
- http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI13042555/00001
Notes
- Summary:
- This document presents some of the policy changes in flood and coastal erosion risk management occurring in England as a result of climate change and its impacts on the country’s shorelines. The report notes that sea level rise and higher storm surges are likely to increase coastal erosion and flooding, fundamentally threatening coastal communities and habitats. It goes on to assess past and present coastal management policy, as well as present the country’s overall risk management for flood and coastal erosion strategy. Historically, protecting the coastline involved a mixture of ‘hold the line’ policies and ‘hard’ defenses like sea walls. Unfortunately, these strategies have proved quite disruptive to natural coastal processes, while also providing a false sense of security that incentivized large-scale development on the coastline, in what are historically risky locations. Risk management will be critical to controlling development pressures on the coasts, that otherwise, would further exacerbate existing risks. The document outlines two key UK policy initiatives currently in place to deal with coastal erosion and flooding: 1) the Making Space for Water Programme (MSFW), launched by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in 2005; and 2) the Draft Flood and Water Management Bill. The MSFW programme is a fundamental shift in policy away from the notion of building hard defenses to prevent disaster, towards the understanding that some level of risk will always exist, but that natural protection strategies can be used to reduce these risks as much as possible. The second policy initiative, the Bill, is based on the concept of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM), which emphasizes the integration of all stakeholders and relevant policymakers in the process of coastal management through open dialogue. In response to the risks associated with the Thames Estuary, the UK government is working to develop and implement a comprehensive coastal risks management that includes a number of measures, including flood defenses, resilient development planning, flood warning systems, and emergency response mechanisms. The risk management plan for the Thames Estuary aims to balance economic factors that make development along the coastline enticing, with efforts to reduce risks along the coast. This is where the incorporation of all stakeholders is vital to developing policies that take into account the seemingly competing, but actually complementary, goals of economic development and safety from hazards. ( English )
- Subject:
- General Disaster Risk Management ( English )
- Citation/Reference:
- (2009). Coastal management. Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.
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