Evaluation of Coastal Management at Swanage

J.Hutchings (Y9) has written an evaluation of coastal management at Swanage. Click on the image to enlarge it, then read the evaluation underneath.

Do you agree with his assesment of the current strategies?
Would you manage it differently?
Would you manage it at all?

(Comment Below or tweet @bsgeography)

Evaluation

Judging by the fact that the officials in charge of the area (described on annotated map) have a main focus of ensuring a sustainable future for the coastal area of Swanage, I think that there is little to be done regarding changes.  It is said that plans dealing with the future of the coast are currently being reviewed, processed and produced, but in the meantime they are continuing to allow the defences already set up to prevent erosion getting out of hand.

Regarding the defences themselves, however, I think that a different approach would have been more adequate.  Having a long system of groynes stretching across some of the coast is good, as it helps to stabilise the beach and keep it in one piece.  The sea walls do their job, but it doesn’t quite meet the needs of a sustainable balance.  They are particularly expensive (one of the most expensive coastal defence concepts) and are also unappealing to the public.  While it may meet the needs of the environment, it fails to do the same socially and economically.

There are no ideal options when it comes to social sustainability, as even though there may be more suitable solutions in terms of appearance, none contribute significantly enough to make it worthwhile.  However, perhaps a series of rip-raps or gabions could have been used, as these are less expensive than sea walls and still manage to absorb the waves’ energy relatively successfully.

Excellent Swanage Map

Below is an excellent map of the Isle of Purbeck made by Tom Lousada. Underneath he details how he created it. This is a very useful set of skills to practise in general, but they will be particularly helpful for writing up fieldwork projects.
(To see the map in a larger format, just click on it)

Slide Background:
The slide background was a screenshot taken off Google Earth. The Google Earth Image had been created by Pinpointing various geological features; i.e. Durdle Door, using the Pinpoint button on the top bar.
The layers of rock geology were created by drawing a polygon over the areas of each rock type. The data for this was taken from the booklet we received before beginning the task. These polygons were then made only 60% opaque and pinned to the ground so that we could see the land underneath.
Making sure only the Pins and the polygons were ticked on the side bar, the screen was then print screened and pasted into Paint where it was then cropped and saved as an image. A PowerPoint document was then opened up and the layout changed to blank. By right-clicking on the slide, format background was selected and the Google Earth picture was selected from a file. The edges were then edited so that the picture was 0 on every side.

Pictures on slide:
After finding pictures of each geological feature on Google, they were all pasted onto the document. Making sure that they were all selected as ‘tight’ in the text wrapping pane, they were spread evenly around the document, avoiding the top and bottom right hand corners, with each picture near to its corresponding Pinpoint.
Arrows were then inserted from the pictures to their Pinpoints and the colour changed so that they could be easily seen against the background.

Title and Key:The title and key were both created by inserting a textbox into the top and bottom right-hand corners and then changing the ‘fill’ of the textbox to white. At the top, the title was written in bold and underlined in a large font, while underneath was a brief summary of what the slide showed and how they were formed. At the bottom, a key was placed describing the colours of the geology on the background in terms of what rock type they were (and whether they were more or less resistant).

By Tom Lousada