Managed Retreat - Disadvantages

Disadvantages

A certain amount of land will inevitably be lost in this process while beaches are being built up resulting in settlements, farmland and other property being destroyed. Because of this, managed retreat is often not a socially acceptable plan and may invoke the need for compensation to land-owners. Intertidal sites are often a rich archaeological resource and the loss of heritage is a factor to weighed in managed retreat projects.

There are no agreed protocols on the monitoring of MR sites (Atkinson et al. 2001) and, consequently, very few of the sites are being monitored consistently and effectively (Wolters et al. 2005c). Due to the low levels of monitoring there is little evidence on which to base future managed realignment projects. This has led to the results of Managed Realignment schemes being extremely unpredictable.