Coastal erosion disgrace - Sky news

[Cobnapint]

Its Xmas Day, (Merry Xmas one and all), and have just seen a piece on Sky News about the awful coastal erosion that is taking place on the East Yorkshire Coast.

Because of this, residents homes there are now worth £0 and they stand to lose everything. This is happening on a tide-by-tide basis in many other parts of our fine country as well.

What is the help from the government? A £6k grant for each property - TO HELP WITH DEMOLITION!

Just a question to our leaders.

Considering all the f**king £BILLIONS in foreign aid that we relentlessly pump out on a yearly basis to lands far away that are, for the most part, taking us for mugs by spending it on guns and big Mercedes - isn't it about time we spent some of it protecting our OWN people's interests!

It's just a matter of basic engineering (piles with defences) and looking after your own (for once).

It would cost, but no where near as much as the very questionable High Speed 2 project, and would create employment.

Get on with it before there's nothing or nobody left to erode!

[Cobnapint]

King Herald said:

Why?? Why should erosion move up the coast simply because you stopped it in one place? What is the law of physics that dictates this will happen?

Yes, the logic of that baffles me too.

I have to wonder at what stage the authorities will intervene - when the erosion threatens a major A road? ...when it looks like a major town has only ten years to go before the high street ends up on the beach...? Because if this has been happening for years, which it clearly has, one can logically assume that its going to keep on happening in the future, and at some stage it won't be a case of heartlessly telling some teary eyed retiree they shouldn't have bought a property on top of a cliff, because many of them probably actually didn't.

And to those who say the sea can't be stopped - of course it bloody can. This country's coastline is littered with piles of huge quarry boulders and sturdy steel reinforced concrete sea-walls that are harmlessly pounded by the sea day in day out.

The hard facts are that only a relative handful of people with a small voice and little impact on the economy are being affected by this at the moment so the authorities are doing feck all about it. None of us will be here, but lets see what happens when somewhere full of voters like Hull suddenly starts getting smaller.

Edited by Cobnapint on Tuesday 25th December 22:19

[Cobnapint]

Piglet said:

Coastal protection is an expensive business - £19.5 million to protect a stretch of Dorset coast http://www.dorsetforyou.com/lyme


Not helpful for those whose properties are at risk but they will have been aware of the risks when they bought.

£20 million+ for a good job done that prevents further suffering, and which creates work and wealth in this country is feck all in the bigger picture. Just to put it in perspective, thats ONE 17th of ONE DAYS total 2014 international aid budget.


And they won't necessarily have been aware of the risk when they bought. Some of the homes will be family hand-me-downs through inheritance.

[Cobnapint]

blueg33 said:

if you live in a high risk area, the risk is high. You have the choice.

I am not sure why people expect he Government to pay up. Its blindingly obvious which areas have fast erosion, a house survey when buying shuld flag it as should a lawyer, an insurer and common sense.

So we're all quite happy to sit back in an 'I'm alright jack' pose and watch while the country gradually washes away into the North Sea are we?

And who else other than the government, just for interest, has the financial means to undertake such a project? You're not expecting the land owners to pay equal subs into a multi-million pound sea defence project are you?

Of all the billions of tax payers money that gets wasted on bribing foreign governments into being our 'friends', surely securing our own coastline should be quite high on the list of necessary things to be done.
The erosion isn't going to stop. Somebody, sometime in the future is going to have to bite the bullet and commit to doing something about it. Why not help the economy a bit and start now?

[Cobnapint]

eccles said:

Do you really not see that the people who bought houses a few hundred yards from a well known eroding cliff should bear the responsibility if their house falls in the sea?

To a point it is surely the governments duty of care to maintain our coastline in a safe condition, not just for the unfortunates that live within your theoretical 'few hundred yards' line of house purchasing stupidity, but for others who will (at a membership gathering rate of approx 7 metres a year) through no fault of their own, ultimately fall within this line themselves.

[Cobnapint]

blueg33 said:

What makes people thjink a concrete barrier is the solution? It would have to encircle the country, closing off ports. It would eliminate huge areas of sensitive and rare habitat, we would have no clean beaches etc

It would only be needed in known locations of high erosion rates. Sticking one across the entrance to a port would be just ridiculous.
And areas of sensitive and rare habitat would remain untouched, just like the wetlands of Norfolk are today in places where they already have big concrete sea walls backed by even bigger sand dunes. Plenty of clean beaches and nature there, I saw it myself a couple of weeks ago. The several hundred Grey Seals and several thousand Geese were loving it.

[Cobnapint]

Rollcage said:

Cobnapint said:

To a point it is surely the governments duty of care to maintain our coastline in a safe condition, not just for the unfortunates that live within your theoretical 'few hundred yards' line of house purchasing stupidity, but for others who will (at a membership gathering rate of approx 7 metres a year) through no fault of their own, ultimately fall within this line themselves.

How is it "through no fault of their own"?

I do post from the point of view of having actually lived in one of these afflicted villages.

Because the occupants of a property, village, town or city that is presently considered to be not at risk, i.e. lets say a mile or more inland, will EVENTUALLY become encompassed within the erosion line themselves as it gradually eats it's way inland.

Those same people will also become the latest victims to some of the snearing hindsight engineers on here who think they were just stupid, as will the poor residents in the following year who presently live 7 metres West of the line of stupidity, and so on, and so on.

[Cobnapint]

Piglet said:

There are 96 miles of coastline that make up the Jurassic Coast, it's a World Heritage site, most of it suffers from erosion and given the weather this year it's at significant risk of collapse in many places.

Soooo....£19.5m for 390 metres for the project I linked to earlier - that would make it quite expensive to concrete all of it, plus that fails to take into account that erosion by the action of waves is only a part of why cliffs collapse.

I know you've picked your position on this OP but I'm not sure that even you believe the stuff that you're trotting out.

It's just not doable, the Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage site - you are simply not allowed to concrete vast chunks of it and if you did you would destroy the tourist industry for miles in areas where there is little alternative employment. The project I linked to above has been carefully designed and scheduled to avoid risk to various types of insect and animals - it's not a straight forward job. This coastline was listed because of its fossil history - even if it was possible to concrete over it, it would be a disaster.

Cliffs like this have been eroding for many centuries - people may have relied on historical, averaged data to make assumptions but there are no rules, nobody has told Mother Nature that erosion must take place on an equal amount each year.

It sounds like the erosion is the disaster. If it carries on at the rate you describe then the fossils really will be history. Surely a world heritage site should be conserved, not left to destroy itself, never to be seen again. It's self defeating.

[Cobnapint]

Good pics, very interesting.

Would like to see the difference in another 3 months time if you're over that way.

[Cobnapint]

zetec said:

A walk along the beach at Happisburgh in Suffolk will show that building defences won't always work.

It does if they are done properly.

If you go on google maps and look a little further down the coast there is a proper concrete wall section running parallel to Doggett's Lane down to Eccles-on-sea which has quite clearly stopped the erosion in it's tracks.

This is exactly what's needed along many parts of that particular coast and others around the UK, before there's nothing left. It's not exactly difficult - the Germans (and the allies for that matter) slung up concrete walls and structures in next to no time during WWII.

If we're that short of cash, then it's time to divert a bit of foreign aid to where it would be appreciated, I feel.

[Cobnapint]

Oakey said:

do you live in one of these areas? Is that why you feel this is so important?

I live in Blackpool and this is a bit like the people who moved into houses along the beachfront and then complain about all the sand getting in their homes.

No, I live about 140 miles inland so it's nowhere near me. I just wouldn't want it happening to my house, and I don't get why the government isn't doing anything about it.
Even if it meant committing to protecting half a mile a year it would be something.

Just because it's not near doesn't mean you can't be concerned about it. Israel isn't near me either but I'm still concerned about Iran enriching Uranium way beyond the purity it needs for a nuclear power station.

[Cobnapint]

randlemarcus said:

What would you like to be protected? The entire country, in which case you lose the beaches with their lapping waves?

The bits that are being eroded would be a good start. The whole country doesn't need protecting. Much of it doesn't suffer from high erosion rates in the first place because of either existing man made or natural sea defences. And some of it is composed of highly resistant solid rock (eg Cornwall and Scotland, amongst many other places) which is able to hold it's own against the elements.

And you don't loose any beaches, they remain as they are. There are countless places along the coastline where a sea walls co-exist with beautiful beaches that are enjoyed by thousands of locals and holiday makers year on year.

And I still don't understand the logic of 'extra' erosion being introduced further up/down the coast from a place which has sea defences. Thats like saying during a rain shower that somebody across the street from you will get wetter quicker because you've had the good sense to put an umberella up.

I can understand how the erosion may 'appear' to be worse, if one part of the coastline stops eroding.

And this 'longshore drift' that a few are quoting on here has more to do with the 'transportation' of silt, sediment and stone along the coastline, and the installation of groynes to help prevent whole beaches being washed away. It has nothing to do with the subject matter of this thread, which is the vertical collapse of unprotected shallow cliffs through direct impact of either the sea at its base, or gravity induced land slippage accelerated by rainfall.

Anyway, HNY one and all.

[Cobnapint]

DonkeyApple said:

I think you have finally got it.

When the wave energy is not being absorbed by the soft cliff wall but being bounced back off hard concrete it has to go elsewhere.

So, no the State should not be giving free money to people.

No, still not got it.

I'm no expert, but the energy in one particular wave won't indefinitely ricochet down the coastline until it meets a soft object that will absorb it. Much of that energy goes straight up in the air in the form of great columns of sea water/spray, momentarily sidewards to be absorbed by the surrounding sea water, downwards onto the beach/shingle, or backwards to be overwhelmed by the next wave.

And even if your theory were true, I don't believe the difference in energy absorbing qualities between a concrete wall and a cliff when faced with the enormous power of the sea would be enough to incur any noticeable acceleration in erosion elswhere along the particular coastline in question.

And I'm not professing that the state should be giving free money to people of this green and pleasant land. Heaven forbid, that would be an outrage. That money is for other things like funding deportation court cases and charter flights for illegal immigrants that should never have been let in in the first place, and handouts to foreign nations that either hate us or have absolutely nothing to do with us. But thats another story.

All I'm saying is that something needs to be done to save our coastline, after all, not all of it is owned by individuals, some of it is owned by the state.

http://news.sky.com/story/1029857/coastal-erosion-... for those that missed it.

[Cobnapint]

Countdown said:

Cobnapint said:

All I'm saying is that something needs to be done to save our coastline,

No it doesn't. The coastline has been changing for millions of years. Rather than expecting the all-providing Nanny State to spend millions/billions of taxpayers money on potentially futile attempts to mitigate coastal erosion people need to start looking after themselves.

The 'Nanny State' has been and 'is' providing millions to stop the erosion already. And the attempts aren't futile. They just need to spend a bit more in the right places to finish the job.

[Cobnapint]

davepoth said:

Absorbing the energy isn't what we're talking about. It's sediment. The cliffs on the north east coast don't just disappear, but they turn up as mud and sand further along the shore in an area where the wave pattern drops as much sediment as it removes. If you stop the cliffs eroding, where does that sediment come from?

Absorbing energy was what DonkeyApple was talking about. I was responding to him.

And sediment is clearly the result of erosion - its stopping the erosion before it becomes sediment that is the issue.

There are plenty of other sources of sediment, eg. the constant supply from rivers and streams that flow into the sea.

[Cobnapint]

davepoth said:

Longshore drift and the concept of sediment cells are a fact, not a theory. You can go and watch it in action at any beach on this country.

What we do at the moment is protect only the things that are economically worthwhile protecting.

I'm not denying that longshore drift is fact, I'm just saying it has nothing to do with the sea crashing into and eroding a cliff at a particular point, which is the main point of the Sky news report and this thread.

What happens to the sediment after the erosion event is not the issue here.

[Cobnapint]

blueg33 said:

Cobnapint said:

I'm not denying that longshore drift is fact, I'm just saying it has nothing to do with the sea crashing into and eroding a cliff at a particular point, which is the main point of the Sky news report and this thread.

What happens to the sediment after the erosion event is not the issue here.

Its absolutely the issue - the sediment gets deposited elsewhere, this of ten prevents erosion in the location where the sediment is deposited.

This has been explained by various people on this thread. I just can't see why you don't get it.

Sediment is not the 'cause' of the issue in the Sky News piece.

The cliffs at Skipsea are unprotected, unsupported relatively high cliffs that are crumbling through a combination of gravity induced land slippage and impact from sea water.

Yes, of course there is some sediment in the sea water - there always is. But even if you filtered the sediment out of every wave there, the cliff erosion would continue unabated.

That is why the sediment is NOT the issue here. I can't see why you don't get it.

[Cobnapint]

DonkeyApple said:

Cobnapint said:

blueg33 said:

Cobnapint said:

I'm not denying that longshore drift is fact, I'm just saying it has nothing to do with the sea crashing into and eroding a cliff at a particular point, which is the main point of the Sky news report and this thread.

What happens to the sediment after the erosion event is not the issue here.

Its absolutely the issue - the sediment gets deposited elsewhere, this of ten prevents erosion in the location where the sediment is deposited.

This has been explained by various people on this thread. I just can't see why you don't get it.

Sediment is not the 'cause' of the issue in the Sky News piece.

The cliffs at Skipsea are unprotected, unsupported relatively high cliffs that are crumbling through a combination of gravity induced land slippage and impact from sea water.

Yes, of course there is some sediment in the sea water - there always is. But even if you filtered the sediment out of every wave there, the cliff erosion would continue unabated.

That is why the sediment is NOT the issue here. I can't see why you don't get it.

Cobna, what you need to appreciate is that there are several Geologists on this thread and that a Sky news article will not consist of real information as it is dumbed down for the masses. It is not a source of real education.

Now, back to your two points here. The cliff will be sheering away due to two points; firstly the undercut at the base by wave action and secondly the low cohesive ability of uncompacted glacial till. The cliffs here are made of debris and sendiments deposited by a glacier. They are very, very young and barely classified as rock. They are basic, unworked, sedimentary deposits from the last ice age. They have no strength, no relevant chemical cohesion are intensely porous.

Now, step back to the undercutting action by the waves. The power of wave action is magnified almost exponentially by the inclusion of sediment and stones. It is a pure function of the amount of debris within the model.

What I want you to do today when you get back from work is to get your car washing bucket and fill it with water. Then, throw this water as hard as you can against the passenger side of your car and repeat ten times. Once you have done this, simply measure by use of your eyes alone the amount of paint the water has removed. This is your 'test' analysis for reference back to after the core experiment.

The next thing you need to do is fill your bucket half with water and half with gravel and stones from your driveway. Throw the contents of this bucket as hard as you can against the driver's side of your car. Repeat ten times and then measure the amount of paintwork removed.

What this very simple domestic experiment will show you is that the power of hydraulic action as a function of erosion is dwarfed by the power of abrasive erosion.

A less costly experiment would be to wonder why sand blasting equipment utilises granular particles at relatively low pressure to cut through their target and that when water alone is used the pressure needs to be increased to massive industrial levels to achieve the same effect.

So, let's now look at the defence strategies for protecting this very weak glacial till from wave action erosion; The first point to recognise is that by protecting one spot you are 100%, catagorically shifting the issue to another point. You need to accept very basic GCSE level physics and not the dribblings of a tabloid media punter. Long Shore Drift is a mechanism that is in operation at all points where moving water meets land, not just sandy beaches.

However, the core issue is to establish how deep the till strata is as you will need to be fixing your defensive system to the bed rock. You can't stick it to the weak strata for extremely obvious reasons. But even if you do this the sediment from one side of the defense will be carried across and start amplyfying erosion on the other side and without any of the wave energy being absorbed by the action of erosion. And at this point you need to take into account that you then reach a rather large estuary of the Humber with very high commercial relevance and residential density.

I really do advise you to stop looking at tabloid sources and as this is clearly a subject that you are very interested in, seek to actually open your mind and educate yourself on it. Your library will contain some excellent and proper books onthe subject. The one I suggested is very good to start with to get your basics covered and it will contain the references of the more in depth reading you can go onto if you wish. Also, a geological map of the area will allow you to see the extent (range and depth) of the glacial deposits and so see how far the erosion will progress before halting.

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to write such a long response. Though next time, could you make it just a little bit less condesending. Thanks.

As quite an intelligent guy (please nobody put 'really?' in the next post), I don't need an abc book on how sand blasting equipment is so effective, nor an infant school-esque car door comparison to understand that gravel in a bucket of water would remove paint more readily than one without. But seeing as you prefer to use this as your benchmark, consider the fact that the composition of the cliffs at Skipsea (of which you seem to have in-depth knowledge of) is as you say just very weak, basic, unworked, sedimentary deposits that have no strength, no relevant chemical cohesion and are intensely porous. Anybody can understand that just crashing tap water would cause these cliffs to collapse, never mind sea water and all it contains.

And the assertion that by protecting one spot you are '100% catagorically shifting the issue to another point' does not follow any logic. You, and a few 'geologists' as you call them, are suggesting that the sea MUST erode something at all costs. Yes, it does erode, constantly, we all know that, but to suggest that if it doesn't get its way at one particular point on the coast it will suddenly turn it's attention somewhere else and INCREASE it's erosion there is just ludicrous.

Back to your car door theory, if I were to protect the paintwork on my drivers door with a bit of hard board, the damage caused to the rear door and front wing wouldn't suddenly increase would it?

And I'm not looking at Tabloid sources. I'm just reacting to and quoting one source, and although it's not a subject I'm 'very' interested in, it makes me angry to think that presumably hard working citizens of this country will be allowed to lose their family wealth and homes, when something could clearly be done about it. And instead of adopting the cost/benefit - tough tittys approach, we should look after our own and put some more money in to solve the problem, rather than throwing it at countless other dubious projects overseas.

I (and I presume you too) would hate to think that MY family home was being foresaken for some of the things contained in this link I've just found.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9560326/B...

To put no finer point on it - it's a downright f**king disgrace. Enjoy, and Happy New Year.

[Cobnapint]

DonkeyApple said:

And what exactly are you going to fix your board to?

As a conscientious school teacher, you would hold it in the correct position whilst one of your favourite pupils (yours truly) conducted the experiment.

DonkeyApple said:

And why the almost religious denial of proven fact and physics?

I'm not denying the facts. I'm denying your statement that 'by protecting one spot you are '100% catagorically shifting the issue to another point'.
As blueg33 points out - it is very probable, not a 100% certainty - there is a difference.

He also posts a very interesting case of the longshore drift dynamics being disrupted by the installation of groynes at Mappleton. This I can understand. But I still maintain my view that a sea wall at one point would not automatically cause the erosion hungry sea to increase its damaging energy elsewhere.

DonkeyApple said:

And just why the obsession with linking to overseas aid?

I tried earlier linking it to HS2, but nobody liked that, so I thought I'd try something that really makes my (and others, quite rightly) blood boil.
There are many other examples of disjointed prioritys on the governmental spending front I could have chosen.

DonkeyApple said:

And why the refusal to nip down to the library?

What is a library?

[Cobnapint]

davepoth said:

It doesn't. As I, and several other learned gents have patiently tried to explain (with pictures and everything) is that there is always erosion on the shore, all the time, at every single spot on the coast. There is nowhere on the coast of the UK where material is not removed from the shore by wave action.

However, along all of the shore there is also deposition - after all, all that material the waves have removed has to go somewhere. In some places there is more erosion than deposition, in others it's the other way around. That has a lot to do with the hardness of the rock being eroded, the direction of the prevailing wind, tide height, amongst other things.

If there is more deposition than erosion, beaches form. Beaches are pretty much the best form of coastal defence because they are naturally sustaining provided there is a ready supply of sediment being deposited on the shore.

In the example of the north east coast, the material from those cliffs is transported south to Spurn Head and the marshes of Lincolnshire. If you stopped the cliffs eroding by building a wall, there would be no material being moved south. The eroding action of the sea continues unabated, but there is no deposition to go with it. Thus those beaches, sand bars and marshes erode as a result of building a sea wall.

That's alot more of a considered response than some on here that have been stating, unequivocally, that the result of the instalation of a sea wall at one point always makes the matter worse in another, when it clearly doesn't - always. There are far too many site specific variables in play for their statments to hold water.

The fact remains, the cliffs are crumbling and I think more should be done to protect our coastline and the people that live near them. I'll leave the dynamics of preserving the integrity of existing beaches etc to the experts.