Shifting Shores

The National Trust has just issued a new report on coastal erosions: Shifting Shores. It marks the increasing move towards adaptation strategies as it becomes clear that action to stop climate change is happening too slow and too late. The authors write:

'In our new report  'shifting shores – playing our part at the coast', we are calling for a bold and imaginative approach to coastline management, involving an understanding of how nature works, moving towards adaptation and away from maintaining engineered defences, where appropriate, while being sensitive to community needs.' 

I particularly enjoyed the glossary at the back, with these gems:

Managed re-alignment – allows an area that is not currently exposed to flooding by the sea to become flooded by removing frontline coastal protection. Note – can also occur as a consequence of ‘force majuere’ i.e. unmanaged re-alignment. [My emphasis]

Uncertainty – a situation where the current state of knowledge is such that the order or nature of things is not fully understood and thus absolute outcomes cannot be defined or guaranteed.