Coastal Development

Our coastal and marine environments continue to placed under pressures from development and the exploitation of our natural resources, using these at levels beyond which they can naturally replenish.

Coastal development – as the human population expands we demand more physical infrastructure as places to live, to help us travel around and to create space for our leisure activities. We also put in place hard physical structures to try to stem the effects of coastal erosion and to protect us from storm damage. These activities all reduce the amount of space available for our natural habitats and wildlife, may increase surface water run-off and pollution and can change the energy dynamics around our coastline. Increasingly more natural solutions to defending our coastlines are being sought such as living shorelines and habitat restoration that takes the energy from waves and creates a buffer against tidal waves, storms and coastal flooding.