Coastal infrastructureIrish coastal communities devising ways to cope with rising sea levels

Almost two years after the winter storms of 2013-14 caused millions of euros worth of damage to Ireland’s coastline, coastal scientists are looking to help rural communities and municipalities along the Irish coast develop systems which will prevent future destruction to buildings and beach properties.

Much of the loss was due to flooding and damage to infrastructure such as promenades, carparks, roads, and seawalls. According to Dr. Eugene Farrell and Dr. Kevin Lynchof theNational University of Ireland (NUI), Galway, , the city of Galway had developed too close to the shoreline, leaving little room for nature to run its course. “Erosion is a natural process that only becomes a problem when we develop in areas that are soft coastline, which are naturally mobile (they erode and build depending on conditions),” said Lynch.

According to the Connacht Tribune, the winter storms of 2013-14 were not the first of their kind, nor will they be the last if weather and climate trends continue. Those storms were unprecedented in terms of severity and total damage, but recent decades have also experienced winters with high frequency storms: 2008, 2004, 1989, 1983, and 1974.

“If these trends continue — as we expect if climate projections are true (sea level rise and increased frequency and intensity of Atlantic storms) — then there is a real threat that our country will not be able to pay to rebuild the coastal infrastructure or protect the coastal communities and industries,” said Farrell, who spent fourteen years in the United States and participated in large well-funded coastal projects that were incorporated into city and county development plans. “After the winter storms of 2013/2014 in Ireland, I quickly realized there was little or no equivalent monitoring data being collected for our coastal sedimentary environments. Without this data, it is very difficult to quantify the change or predict what future trends may occur,” Farrell explained.

Farrell and Lynch have launched a comprehensive monitoring program in West Kerry, where the Office of Public Works is supporting their work and research. The researchers are currently conducting GPS surveys to gather data. The program will provide a benchmark to inform coastal management strategies that aim to respond to the high storm frequency predicted in many climate models. In their proposal for the program, the researchers wrote: “We need to be able to identify the system thresholds that will trigger the breakdown of our coastal system equilibria – especially as these large storm events are expected to occur more frequently as future climate change models predict, ultimately leading to increased coastal erosion and flooding risks.”

Farrell and Lynch also want to educate the public on the value of coastlines. They have launched the “I Like Beaches” project, a student-led initiative funded by NUI Galway’s EXPLORE initiative and in partnership with the Galway City Council to increase awareness of the coastal and marine environment by installing a series of environmental and scientific education boards and signs along Galway City Beaches.

“It’s important that we are aware of how our beaches and coastal dunes work. What causes them to erode? How do they rebuild themselves? What happens when we intervene to try and fix things? I think the general public are very receptive to looking at beaches and dunes in a new way when they have all the relevant information before them,” said Lynch.

For rural communities already losing land along the coastline, Farrell and Lynch want to teach leaders of those communities’ coastal management techniques. “Part of our remit is to give these communities a voice and to give their managers the tools to manage their coastal resources efficiently,” said Farrell.

NUI Galway has launched a Masters program, titled “Coastal Marine Environments: Physical Processes, Policy and Practice,” with the goal of training the next generation of scientists on how coasts form and erode. “It seeks to challenge and facilitate students to engage with, but go beyond established scientific conceptual and theoretical perspectives, engage new ways of understanding the complexities of our evolving physical coastal and marine environments, and develop critical insights that can support policy and practice in sustaining these increasingly vulnerable environments.”