Flooding the Wantsum Thanet’s most important issue.

I have just read the article on the council’s response to global warming on the Thanet Gazette and Times website http://www.thisiskent.co.uk/thanet/Global-warming-threat-Thanet/article-876067-detail/article.html it pretty much sums up much of governments attitude worldwide.

On the one hand the council is making a few minor concessions, turning off a few lights and not leaving the heat on in their offices when no one is using them etc. on the other hand promoting airport expansion, out of town leisure and shopping, long distance imports etc all cranking up the carbon footprint.

Although opinions differ about the result there is obviously a considerable risk here that we are in for a major catastrophe.

The Isle of Thanet is a manmade island click on the link for some historical background http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2008/03/thanet-and-wantsum.html as the wind and waves come from a predominately north-westerly direction it is the costal defences north of where the Wantsum (the channel that originally separated Thanet from the mainland) was, that are most critical.

The last time the sea defences here failed was in the 1953 storm, when so much of the railway was washed away that it had to close for five months, this occurred without global warming and the resultant rise in sea levels.

If you enlarge the map above by clicking on it you will see the shaded areas that show where the Wantsum was, all of this low lying land is at considerable risk from the sea even a relatively small rise in sea levels increases that risk.

The South east Costal Group have now published their management plans for the north Wantsum sea defence and frankly they don’t look very sensible, there is also an inconsistency in them that suggests there was some disagreement among members of the group click on the link to look at them http://www.se-coastalgroup.org.uk/assets/policy-unit-4a-14-proposed.pdf as you can see the proposed managed realignment means we wind up with a much longer sea defence, it also means that the action of the sea trapped in this new inlet is likely to be considerably worse than it would be along straight coastline.

If arranging the sea defences in this peculiar way was a good idea they wouldn’t have wasted all the time and money filling in the land between the railway and the sea defences in 1953.

Baywatch

Replying to various comments and checking my facts I was wondering what people thought of cancer causing benthic chemicals going into Pegwell bay. As the old hoverport foundations made from coal mining slag, the runoff from Manston Airport and the surrounding roads all go into it untreated.

I wonder what the provision is for an aviation fuel spillage.

click to enarge pictures

The Shoreline Management Plan

Back to my notes on high tides and global warming, here in Thanet we can expect to be seriously effected by rising sea levels. So how much can we expect the sea to rise, well to start with the land is sinking by about 0.8 mm per year for geological reasons related to the last ice age. The latest predictions for the rise in sea level in this area are 1990 to 2025 4 mm per year 2025 to 2055 8.5 mm per year 2055 to 2085 12 mm per year.

So by 2085 the land will have sunk by 61.6 mm and the sea risen by 640 mm giving a total rise in level of 700 mm about 27 inches. Combined with this we can expect much stormier winters.

What this means to us here in Thanet, first and foremost, is that the low-lying ground that was once the Wantsum Sea Channel that separated us from mainland Britain is vulnerable to the sea flooding back in and washing away the land.

For our two main towns Margate and Ramsgate the areas around the harbours and main beaches will be more liable to flooding and storm damage.

Those places where the cliffs are not protected by a concrete promenade will be subject to greater cliff erosion.

I would recommend reading The Shoreline Management Plan especially appendix C it makes for rather disturbing reading. Click here to read it