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Speaker: Robert Nicholls
r.j.nicholls<at>soton.ac.uk
School of Civil Engineering and the Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton S017 1BJ, UK
Title of the talk: Climate
change and economic development on Europe’s coast (pdf: 3,7MB)
Summary of the talk by a student: Students´
summary (pdf)
Abstract
Climate change and economic development on Europe’s coast
When considering the long-term management of European coasts, it is
important to consider the changing balance of pressures that impact the coast
(e.g., Turner et al., 1998). This presentation will examine these trends in
terms of observed and potential climate and human use of the coastal zone in
Europe and particularly their implications for coastal management during the
21st Century. It builds on a number of earlier reviews and assessments of Europe’s
coasts such as Nicholls (2000), de la Vega-Leinert et al. (2000), and Nicholls
and de la Vega-Leinert (2003).
The coastal zone in Europe is varied with a range of distinct environments in
terms of coastal geomorphology and wave/tidal conditions. It is also a focus
for important population and economic centres. Human activities within the coastal
zone are diverse and include industry, urban and residential, tourism and recreation,
transport, fisheries/aquaculture and agriculture (Rigg et al., 1997). Europe’s
coastal zones also contain a notable part of the world’s coastal population
(Small and Nicholls, 2003), and one third of the European Union population is
estimated to live within 50 km of the coast, with the proportion being 100%
in Denmark and 75% in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Coastal urban
agglomerations are important with a collective population of 120 million people
(Papathanassiou et al., 1998) and urbanisation is a continuing trend due to
coastward migration and tourism development, particularly around the Mediterranean.
In addition to direct human uses, the coast is also an important habitat of
international significance with freshwater, brackish and saline marshes and
intertidal and shallow subtidal habitats and it supports important fishery resources.
As populations have grown and economic activity has intensified so a range
of often inter-related and conflicting pressures have emerged in the coastal
zone (e.g., French, 1997; Papathanassiou et al., 1998). This includes pressure
for coastal development and land claim around estuaries and lagoons. For example,
from 1960 to 1990 it is estimated that 1 km of unspoilt coastline was developed
and 30 ha of dune habitat was lost every day. Given widespread erosional trends
and flood risks, there has been a frequent demand for (usually hard) defences.
Hard defences reduce sediment input to the coastal system, intensifying erosional
pressures and hence increase the need for hard defences. This vicious cycle
has lead to armouring of significant lengths of the European coast. Hard defences
also lock the coastal position and hence contribute to a coastal squeeze on
eroding and retreating shorelines. Human changes outside the immediate coast
have also had adverse consequences on coastal areas. Deltaic areas such as the
Ebro, Rhone and Po have become threatened because they have been sediment-starved
due to changing catchment management, particularly dam construction (e.g., Sanchez-Arcilla
et al., 1998). Sediment input to the coast from smaller catchments has been
similarly reduced.
These widespread coastal impacts of human interventions were not foreseen, and
only recently are some of their implications being fully appreciated. They represent
an undesirable trend in the face of uncertain climate and other changes (Nicholls
and Branson, 1998). However, moves towards more soft engineering, sediment recycling
and managed realignment (e.g., Hanson et al., 2002; Rupp and Nicholls, 2003)
and a more long-term approach to both the present and future changes (e.g.,
DEFRA, 2001; Burgess et al., 2002; the Eurosion Project) demonstrates a move
towards more flexible and strategic approaches.
For coastal zones, climate change is adding to all these stresses with rising
sea levels already evident around most of Europe’s coasts, excluding Scandinavia
(Figure 1). In the 21st Century this rise is expected to accelerate due to global
warming. There are also observed fluctuations in the characteristics of storms
(e.g., WASA Group, 1998) and a decline in sea ice in parts of the Baltic due
to rising sea temperatures. The impacts of sea-level rise and
climate change on the coastal areas of Europe are expected to be overwhelmingly
negative. The major impacts are expected to be increased flooding, increased
erosion and permanent inundation, particularly for coastal ecosystems. However,
the SURVAS Project found that concern about sea-level rise, including the level
of preparation varied greatly around Europe, and many countries are even ignoring
observed 20th Century rise, let alone preparing for the accelerated rise expected
in the 21st Century (Tol et al., 2003).
Key Discussion Points
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