Engineering Excellence

The coast is a dynamic environment, rich in natural resources and popular for development; in fact, most of the world’s population live close to coastal areas. Despite being considered prime real estate, human impact and climate change have created unprecedented challenges for coastal communities who are now experiencing accelerated coastal erosion and the increasing risk of flooding.

Our Coastal Engineers are responsible for designing and delivering civil engineering projects that help to protect coastal communities from flooding and erosion, while creating attractive places for leisure and amenity. It’s not possible to prevent all flooding or erosion but there are actions that can be taken to manage these risks and reduce the impact on coastal communities of climate change. Coastal defences can take the form of defence structures, such as breakwaters, seawalls, groynes and revetments or softer defences techniques such as beach renourishment, beach recycling and realignment. Ensuring the selection of the right coastal management technique or defence structure is critical in achieving the goal of effective management of the coastline. Our ongoing inspection, repair and maintenance of these assets, then ensures they remain effective and provide their expected service life.

At Coastal Partners the Major Projects Team and Engineering Team lead on this crucial work. Highly experienced civil engineers and construction management professionals within the teams deliver project management and engineering design services for capital projects.

The Major Projects Team lead on several largescale schemes, including the Southsea Coastal Scheme (pages 22 - 23), the largest local authorityled coastal defence project in the country and the North Portsea Island Coastal Scheme (pages 24 - 25), covering 8.4km of coastline.

The Engineering Team lead on a variety of highprofile flood and coastal engineering projects across our region. Working alongside designers, contractors and consultants, the team deliver firstclass engineering solutions tailored to the unique coastal activity of each location, and resilient to climate change.

Experience of complex projects in the coastal environment has led to extensive experience in:

• Project management • Civil engineering design & design management • Site supervision • NEC contract management • Procurement • Asset management • Surveys and inspections

Climate Change

Managing our biggest threat

The effects of climate change pose a real threat to communities and biodiversity along the world’s coastline. The Environment Agency (EA) predicts that 1 million people in Britain will be exposed to annual coastal flooding by 2100. Moreover, the UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18) point to increased storminess and, whilst summers are projected to be hotter and drier, rainfall levels are likely to be greater and more intense.

The National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies rates coastal flooding as amongst the highest risks to the UK. This is because a flood event is both relatively likely and could have a serious impact on communities, businesses, and infrastructure. A major flood event is happening almost every year, rainfall records are regularly broken, and storms are impacting large parts of the UK at any time of year not just winter. Significant parts of the UK’s coastline is eroding, permanently impacting communities and infrastructure. The economic costs run into billions of pounds and the impacts on peoples’ health, disruption and loss of life are profound.