Coastal Management Essay

Coastal management refers to all the management practises, scientific and traditional, which help to maintain the balance between environmental processes, human health, human and economic activities of coastal areas (National Ocean Service, 2014).
Coastal areas are dynamic environments which are continuously acted upon by wind, rain, waves and wave action from changing tides and currents. These strong forces have shaped the world’s coastlines predominantly through erosion and deposition (Chiras & Reganold, 2010). Our coastlines may be made up of dunes and beaches, rocky cliffs, barrier islands or coral reefs. They also usually support coastal wetlands, salt marshlands and thick mangrove forests which act as buffers between our fragile coasts

This has been used in areas which depend on beach tourism so that the beach is not made unattractive. However, some amount of beach erosion still occurs and maintenance is difficult since they are offshore (Coastal Management, 2015).

Soft engineering, the next type of coastal management, refers to ‘the use of ecological principles and practices to reduce erosion and achieve stability and safety of shorelines and rivers while enhancing habitats, aesthetics and saving money’ (Foster, 2010). Soft engineering options are less expensive, more sustainable, long term and have less impact on the environment (Debens, 2009).
Beach nourishment is a technique used to reclaim or restore a lost beach or to create a new sandy shoreline. The sand and sediments used may be gotten from seabed mining, imported or brought from interior locations. The sand and sediment is placed along the shoreline to widen the beach and thus it decreases the waves’ energy when they hit the shore. This type of activity protects the coastal lowlands and it preserves the beach’s resources (Foster, 2010). However it needs to be continuously monitored and maintained as intense rainfall or wave events may wash away large amounts of sediments (Coastal Management,