The island of Ireland shrinks by a startling 750 acres each year, land taken from us by the relentless movement of the sea. Human interference usually hastens rather than hinders this loss, according to a University of Ulster researcher, who added that climate change would make things even worse.
North Wexford, south Down and Lough Foyle coastlines are under particular pressure, according to Dr Andrew Cooper, the head of the Coastal Research Group at the University of Ulster, Coleraine. He warned yesterday of worse to come at the seventh International Coastal Symposium in Templepatrick, Co Antrim.
The group takes an all-Ireland approach to its research, studying coastal zone management and shoreline loss right around the island.
Most of the annual loss "is perfectly natural", Dr Cooper said, as the coastline continues to adjust to sea levels that have been in place for 6,000 years. "Climate change could accelerate the rate of erosion" if sea levels started to rise, he added.
The western seaboard was able to withstand the "big wave energies" coming off the Atlantic but one climate change model suggested that prevailing winds would swing around from the south-west to the south-east. This would speed shoreline loss along the east coast.
Attempts to protect our shores from erosion often accelerate losses, he said. "The way we have handled it in the past has been very poor." Erosion is a natural process but "we can upset that natural evolution quite markedly. We also take an ad-hoc approach."
Sand is swept away during a storm and voters ask for defences. Councils put them in "simply to appease public opinion", Dr Cooper said. A seawall was built to protect Bray but it caused the loss of the sandy beach due to wave reflection.
It was wrong to put solid structures into evolving coastlines, he said. It was "more a case of working with nature". He called for a "national-level strategy for how we deal with coastal erosion".
