Human Impacts and Landscape Change at the Coast

Human activities change more than the shoreline

A coastal landscape includes cliffs, beaches, dunes and habitats, as well as settlements, farmland and infrastructure. Waves and weather continually reshape it, but human activities can alter how quickly change happens and where its effects are felt.

A direct effect follows immediately from an activity: constructing buildings adds weight to a cliff, for example. An indirect effect happens through another process: a defence traps sediment, reducing the supply to a beach farther along the coast. Neither term means automatically beneficial or harmful. Protecting houses may benefit their residents while increasing erosion elsewhere.

Development changes cliffs, drainage and habitats

Coastal locations attract housing and tourism. Hotels, campsites, roads and visitor attractions occupy land and change the appearance of the coast. On unstable cliffs, the additional weight of buildings can contribute to slope failure.

Roads, roofs and other hard surfaces also change drainage. Less water infiltrates into the ground beneath these surfaces, and more flows over them as surface run-off. Concentrated run-off can increase erosion. Development that removes dunes or salt marshes also removes habitats and natural protection against the sea.

Tourism creates jobs and income, giving communities a strong reason to protect their coast. However, increased traffic, litter and waste put pressure on the landscape. The overall impact therefore depends on how development is located and managed, not simply on whether tourism occurs.

Agriculture alters vegetation and water movement

Clearing trees and hedges for farmland reduces vegetation cover. With fewer roots binding the soil and less vegetation intercepting rainfall, soil erosion and surface run-off can increase. Grazing and trampling can also damage dune vegetation, weakening a natural coastal barrier.

Agricultural effects extend beyond the field itself. Fertilisers washed into coastal waters can encourage excessive algal growth, damaging aquatic ecosystems. These are indirect effects because water transports the chemicals away from where they were applied.

The relationship works in both directions: farming changes coastal environments, while erosion and flooding can remove farmland and threaten rural livelihoods.

Industry creates both landscape changes and protection pressures

Some industries need coastal locations for cooling water or transport access. Hinkley Point is an example of a coastal nuclear power station, while Easington in East Yorkshire has a gas terminal. Their infrastructure occupies coastal land and creates a strong incentive to defend valuable sites against erosion and flooding.

Ports and shipping can change coastal processes through dredging, which removes seabed sediment to maintain navigable water depths. This can alter currents, sediment movement and habitats. Industrial pollution or leaks can also harm coastal ecosystems, although a potential risk should not be confused with an event that has actually occurred.

An important distinction is that erosion threatening a terminal is a physical process affecting human activity. Building defences for that terminal is a human response that then modifies the coastal landscape.

Coastal management protects places but changes processes

Hard engineering uses structures to resist or alter coastal processes. Sea walls protect land from wave attack. Riprap, or rock armour, uses large boulders to absorb and dissipate wave energy. Groynes extend across beaches and trap sediment moving along the shore, helping to maintain a wider protective beach.

These methods can safeguard homes, roads and businesses, but they also change the coastline's appearance and require maintenance. Groynes can have consequences beyond the defended site: sediment retained at one beach is no longer available to replenish another beach farther along the coast.

Soft engineering includes beach nourishment, planting vegetation and cliff drainage. Nourishment replaces beach material, vegetation helps stabilise sediment, and drainage reduces water build-up in cliffs. These approaches work more closely with natural processes, but they still need upkeep: waves can carry away newly added beach material.

Assessing management therefore means asking both whether it protects the intended place and what it does to the wider coastal system.

Holderness: why its location matters

The Holderness Coast lies on the east coast of Yorkshire. It stretches approximately 61 km from Flamborough Head to Spurn Point, where it meets the Humber Estuary. Its location matters because it combines exposure to North Sea waves with vulnerable geology and valuable human activities.

Much of the coastline consists of soft boulder clay, also called glacial till. It is easily eroded and prone to slumping, especially after heavy rain. Wave erosion removes material from the cliff base, while rainfall can make the cliff material less stable. Marine erosion and mass movement therefore work together to cause retreat.

The North Sea provides a long fetch over which waves can develop. Powerful waves attack the coast, and its naturally narrow beaches offer relatively little protection. Parts of Holderness can retreat by around 2 metres per year, although erosion varies between places and over time.

Waves also transport sediment southwards through longshore drift. Waves approaching at an angle move material diagonally up the beach; the returning water moves it back down. Repeated movement carries sediment along the coast. This connects places that might otherwise appear separate: a change to sediment supply in one location can affect beaches farther south.

Mappleton and Great Cowden: protection redistributes erosion

At Mappleton, a £2 million scheme using two rock groynes and riprap was designed to protect the village and the B1242 road, which runs close to the cliff edge. The groynes trapped sediment and helped create a wider beach on their northern side. That beach reduces the wave energy reaching the cliffs, while the rock armour provides additional protection.

However, trapping sediment interrupted its southward movement. Beaches farther south received less natural replenishment. At Great Cowden, this contributed to increased erosion because a reduced beach exposed the cliffs more directly to wave attack.

This is an interaction rather than a purely human or purely physical cause. The coast was already vulnerable because of its clay cliffs and energetic waves. Human management changed the sediment supply, altering where those physical processes caused the greatest damage. Land and property losses along Holderness have included farms and holiday accommodation, including 100 chalets at Golden Sands Holiday Park.

Different places have different protection priorities

At Hornsea, a tourist resort, wooden groynes, a sea wall and gabions protect developed areas, including the town centre and promenade. At Withernsea, sea walls, riprap and beach nourishment help reduce wave attack and slow retreat. Protecting these places safeguards property, tourism income and infrastructure.

At Easington, £4.5 million of riprap protects the gas terminal, but not the village itself. This illustrates how the economic importance of infrastructure can influence protection decisions. It also creates conflict: people living nearby may remain exposed even though the industrial site is defended.

Farther south, Spurn Point is a spit whose maintenance depends on sediment supply. Reduced supply can threaten the landform and the habitats it supports. The consequences of management therefore extend beyond buildings and roads to coastal ecosystems.

Judging the overall effect

Human activities can increase vulnerability through construction, vegetation clearance and altered drainage. They can also reduce vulnerability locally through coastal protection. At Holderness, management has protected valuable settlements and infrastructure, but has not removed the physical causes of erosion across the whole coast.

The central judgement is that local protection does not necessarily produce a benefit for the whole coastline. A convincing assessment considers the defended place, neighbouring beaches, economic interests and habitats together.