After three decades of managed realignment in the UK, what are the key takeaways?

The term ‘management realignment’ refers to the process of allowing controlled tidal flooding across low-lying coastal areas that are, in the absence of any such managed intervention, vulnerable to uncontrolled and damaging coastal flood events.

It is 28 years since the first official managed realignment project was carried out in the UK. Over the nearly three decades which have followed, 75 realignments have been completed in the UK alone (as well as a further 48 across the rest of Europe). The details and lessons from these projects are collated in ABPmer’s database of completed coastal adaptation projects (OMReg).

In the latest Sherkin Comment, an environmental publication of Sherkin Island Marine Station, Cork, ABPmer’s Colin Scott shares the key takeaways from the wealth of real-world project experience collected in OMReg, and their implications for future schemes.  

Read our article ‘Managed Realignment in the UK’ in Sherkin Comment (page 22)

^{Header photo: Wallasea Island Wild Coast, courtesy of RSPB, 2019}