What does coastal management involve

Building groynes - a wooden barrier built at right angles to the beach. Prevents the movement of beach material along the coast by longshore drift. Allows the build up of a beach. Beaches are a natural defence against erosion and an attraction for tourists.

Can be seen as unattractive. Costly to build and maintain. Rock armour or boulder barriers - large boulders are piled up on the beach. Absorb the energy of waves. You can probably think of many more reasons why coasts need to be protected. It is not possible to completely stop the power of natural forces from changing the coast. People try to protect some areas from erosion but this can have negative impacts as well as positive.

Big, retractible walls built across estuaries that can be used as a floodgate to prevent storm surges. This is where sand and shingle are added to a beach in order to make it wider. This increases the distance a wave has to travel to reach the cliffs and so the wave will lose more energy and have less erosive power when it reaches the cliffs. The sand and shingle has to be obtained from elsewhere and is normally obtained from dredging.

Land management is often used to help protect and rebuild dunes. Sand dunes act as a good barrier against coastal flooding and erosion and they can be exploited as a natural defence against the sea. In order to do so though, the dunes must be left relatively undisturbed so boardwalks are constructed and sections of sand dune systems are marked as out of bounds to the general public in order to reduce the erosion of the dunes by humans. This land management is discussed in more detail here.

Marshland can be used to break up the waves and reduce their speed, reducing the waves erosive power. The marshlands also limit the area which waves can reach preventing flooding.

The marshlands can be created by encouraging the growth of marshland vegetation such as glassworts. Beach stabilisation involves planting dead trees in the sand to stabilise it and lower the profile of the beach while widening the beach too. The Wirral is located in the north west of England, to the south of Liverpool.

The Wirral is a peninsula meaning that three sides of the Wirral are surrounded by water while the fourth side is attached to the land. A combination of both hard engineering and soft engineering techniques have been employed. New Brighton was a very important coastal tourist destination on the Wirral however over the past 30 years the are has fallen into decline. In more recent years, the area has been rejuvenated and many new structures have been constructed along New Brighton making protecting New Brighton from the sea incredibly important.

Land uses in New Brighton include economic and residential uses. One program under the CZMA, the National Coastal Zone Management Program, encourages coastal states and territories to work in partnership with the federal government to design and enforce local programs consistent with the CZMA and accompanying regulations. Today, 34 of the 35 eligible coastal and Great Lakes states and territories have entered into the voluntary partnership.