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Rising Sea Levels in the UK |
Did you know: By the year 2050 the sea levels in Britain will have risen by up to half a metre.
South and eastern Britain is slowly sinking as the north and west rises through loss of the weight of the glaciers from the last Ice Age. Combined with global rising sea levels caused by melting polar ice caps the risk of flooding by the sea is increasing dramatically.
It is impossible to protect the whole UK (or world?) with hard concrete defences. It is not only too expensive, it wouldn’t work. The effects of wave action would eventually erode the foundations of the sea walls. The intertidal zone (the area between high and low tides) will get smaller as sea levels rise as a result of the high tide being restrained by the sea wall. This will mean that there is less habitat for wading birds such as sandpipers and dunlin etc. to feed.
| One way of protecting the towns along the coast and estuaries is to take pressure off their hard sea defences. Allowing some land away from settlments to flood and become a saltmarsh, enables that land to absorb some of the rising sea levels and will mean that sea walls protecting towns and settlements last longer. |
Alkborough Flats looking towards the River Humber |
Satellite picture of Alkborough Flats with the River Trent on the left and the Humber at the top |
One of the areas where this idea is being put into action is on the Humber Estuary. The Humber Estuary contains four ports, industrial areas and large centres of population. It is also one of the top ten estuaries in Europe for migratory wildfowl. The Environment Agency in partnership with English Nature, the Countryside Agency and North Lincolnshire Council is going to allow 440 hectares of land at Alkborough Flats (near the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Trent) to flood and become saltmarsh. This will reduce high water levels throughout the Humber Estuary and will also be a huge wetland habitat creation project. There will be reedbeds, saltmarsh, mudflats and grazing marshes created and the whole area will become a new National Nature Reserve. For more information on the Alkborough Flats Project contact John Pygott. |
More information on managing sea levels can be found from English Nature and FRAME (a project across Europe to find ways to reduce flood risks in estuaries)
