Bioprotection: working with nature to manage coastal hazards

Working with nature to manage coastal hazards

There is increasing concern about coastal erosion and about the impact of hard-engineering coastal defences. Bioprotection is a type of soft protection that uses natural systems such as saltmarshes to defend coasts. This article looks at the benefits of such defences and at the way habitat niches can be created in hard-engineering structures to both encourage biodiversity and help protect the structures themselves. You will benefit from reading this if you are studying coasts, biodiversity, ecosystems or the impacts of climate change

Larissa Naylor and Martin Coombes

Salt marsh both protects the coast and encourages biodiversity

The world’s coastal margins are under intense pressure from human activity and our changing environment. Coastal populations are rapidly expanding, with up to 80% of people expected to live in low-lying coastal areas by 2050. People and property in these areas are at risk from natural hazards such as wave erosion, and flooding from storms and tsunamis.

Hard coastal engineering (structures like sea walls and breakwaters) is often used in urban coastal areas to manage the hazard risk, especially where soft-engineering alternatives (such as wetland creation) are not viable. But there are problems with hard-engineering solutions, not least that they lead to loss of habitat and biodiversity. As well as their importance to the natural world, these habitats provide valuable services to people (called ‘ecosystem services’, see Box 1). Biodiversity matters to us in a number of ways, and for this reason, there is growing recognition by coastal managers of the benefits of nature-based solutions to environmental hazards and climate change. Building on the Basics (pages 9–11) in this issue looks at shoreline management plans with a case study from Suffolk.