The coast at Holderness is eroding faster than any other stretch of coastline in Europe. The rate of erosion is two meters per year and most of it occurs during storms. In 1953 four meters were removed in one day and in 100 years, over 76,000 cubic meters of cliff material has been eroded. Since Roman times the sea has advanced inland three kilometers and at least 50 villages have been destroyed. This is because waves build up a long length of fetch traveling across the North Sea from the north-east and hitting this coast with a lot of force and because the cliffs are made of easily eroded loose material like boulder clay they quickly get eroded away. There are four main processes by which the sea erodes this coastline. They are hydraulic pressure which is sometimes called hydraulic action. This is the force of the waves especially when they trap and compress air in the cracks and holes in a cliff, therefore making them bigger. Then there is corrasion which happens when the waves throw particles, for example small pebbles and rocks, at cliff surfaces and attrition which occurs when the waves causes rocks and pebbles on the beach to smash into each other and break down in size. Lastly there is corrosion. This happens when the cliffs are slowly dissolved or decomposed by the acids in the sea water.
There are four strategies which I could adopt to manage this coastline. These are:-.
1. "Hard" Engineering. This is the use of hard material such as concrete or wood on coastlines to protect it. .
2. "Soft" Engineering. This is the use of short term solutions to solve the problem of erosion such as planting marram grass or zoning off the land to keep areas from suffering pressure.
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3. Managed Retreat. This is where part of the coastline is managed while allowing nature to take its course on other parts.
4. Not doing anything. This is obvious really.
My first thought would be that if money was not an object then I would choose to use "hard" engineering to protect the Holderness coastline even if this means that the coastline would look quite untidy, unnatural and discourage tourism.
