20 September in Swanage
Our team were delighted to be part of Discovery Fest, Planet Purbeck & Dorset Coast Forum’s family-friendly festival by the sea. Our ‘office’ for the day had a great view and we were serenaded by some fantastic live music throughout the event.
We had some good discussions about a variety of schemes we are delivering to manage flooding and coastal change and some of the ways that we enhance our environment, but primarily we were there to showcase how and why the material that makes up our beaches changes from the finer sediment seen in Swanage to coarse shingle and stones at Hurst Spit.
People could see and feel how the beach material changes and learn how it migrates from Swanage, moving eastwards until it deflects off Hurst Spit, creating the large underwater banks offshore including Shingles Bank, Dolphin Bank and Dolphin Sands. There was general support for our ambition to work with nature to use this stored resource for the benefit of our coastline in our local ‘sediment cell’ which stretches from Durlston to Hurst and we’ll have more to share about this in the coming months.
SWFaC’s Jay, Saskia & Catherine
SWFaC’s Jay, Saskia & Catherine
The view from our ‘office’
The view from our ‘office’
Our interactive beach material display
Our interactive beach material display
Swanage’s fine-medium sand
Swanage’s fine-medium sand
SWFaC’s Coastal Champion
This free exhibition marks the Forum’s 30th anniversay and tells the inspiring and diverse stories of those that play an active role in bringing wider benefits to Dorset’s beautiful coastline – and Alan was selected as one of them.
Alan brings over 24 years experience working in the flood and coastal risk management sector. His work has included leading on the delivery of two Shoreline Management Plans and co-authoring the Coastal Change Adaptation Planning Guidance for England. Alan has been nominated as a coastal champion due to his deep knowledge of the Dorset Coast, his understanding of coastal dynamics and his commitment to managing the evolving relationship between people and the coast.
What motivates you to do the work that you you do?
I’m really interested in how we as humans use the coast, how the coast evolves, how nature will want to change the coast in the future and how we will respond to that. It’s always been an interesting question to me, and I find the technical nature of it and the challenges we’re facing are so complex and the work is so varied, it never gets boring.
How would you like to see the future of the Dorset Coast?
Everyone loves the natural beauty of the Dorset coast. So it is about making sure what we do now doesn’t degrade it or make it worse for future generations. A lot of our work is dealing with issues and legacies that were created by our Victorian predecessors where engineering was the solution. We know engineering is not always the solution now, and we’re having to deal with the consequences of that. We need to look at ways that can manage communities in the future and how will they adapt and evolve and be different to what they are now.
What are some of the current challenges that coastal communities are facing?
A big one, and one that I’m really interested in is that a lot of our coastal towns are based on beach economies. But because of the actions we’ve taken over the last two centuries or so, we’ve generally cut those beaches off from their natural sediment supply. And with sea level rise, those beaches are going to narrow, and in places be lost. So it’s a really interesting question of what are those beach economies in those towns going to do long term and how do we prepare now for the inevitability of that change if those communities are going to remain viable communities? Planning for the future when we know stuff is going to happen, proactively and in good time, will mean when the inevitable does happen, the impacts will be less.
The exhibition will be visiting Durlston Country Park and the Wild Chesil Centre at Portland through October – their last stop being at Gather in the Dolphin Centre, Poole from 11-14 November.
