Beach Errosion

[Cherrybomb]

saw in the news yesterday about beach errosion off the coast of England. Lots of people losing homes. Can't remember what area they were referring to. I also don't know the cause. Just normal errosion from the pounding surf or global warming?

[Helen]

Its the cliffs at the coast, mostly the east coast but possibly others too.

They are just falling away and taking whatever is on the top of them.

People's homes and land, farms and animals and even hotels.

My family and myself viewed a property in a village called Atwick which is near a town called Hornsea on the east coast and the cliff's are just crumbling due to the weather and rough sea's.

Its been calculated that its eroding at 1.07 metres per year and from 1956 to current date its eroded about 54 metres.

[jason_andrew_relva]

The cliffs of southern England are made of porous limestone and erosion is a natural occurence, although the increasing sea level is undoubtedly a factor in speeding up the process there really is nothing which can be done - limestone erodes it's what it does I'm afraid.

[Garden Rebel]

When people build a house on the sea shore and it's eventually washed into the sea, it should not come as a surprise? No more than people who build a house on an earthquake fault only to have it knocked down by an earthquake should be surprised.

Nature is a powerful force, and if you build a house in a risky place like a sea shore, then you should expect something like this to eventually happen.

I feel bad for the people who have lost they're homes and possesions, but on the other hand, it's they're own fault for choosing to live there.

[Helen]

When people build a house on the sea shore and it's eventually washed into the sea, it should not come as a surprise? No more than people who build a house on an earthquake fault only to have it knocked down by an earthquake should be surprised.

Nature is a powerful force, and if you build a house in a risky place like a sea shore, then you should expect something like this to eventually happen.

I feel bad for the people who have lost they're homes and possesions, but on the other hand, it's they're own fault for choosing to live there.

I don't think this a a fair comment, some of the homes that have been lost into the sea have been built quite far inland not right on the cliff edge and many years ago and its the many years of erosion that they have finally succomed.

[antman]

How far inland do these cliffs go? Is this erosion rate increasing?

I guess living so close to the shore on those sort of cliffs is asking for trouble in the long-run, but I wonder if property buyers there were fully informed of the full extent of the issues prior to investing? Perhaps no one really knew?

It's sort of like buying property in Florida USA; yes, you know that severe storms and hurricanes will hit you, and sometimes severely so, but it still comes as a devestating shock when it does!