Coast
The coastline of the United Kingdom is constantly changing by erosion and deposition of materials. One area suffering from major erosion is the east coast of England, where in particular the town of Dunwich has been swallowed by the sea. At one time it was one of the largest ports in England but is completely gone. Another place that was largely destroyed is Hallsands, which was hit by storms in 1917, its defences having been removed by offshore dredging. Many beaches have had groynes constructed on them to control the movement of material.
Some areas of the UK are now under threat from rising sea levels while in the past the North Sea, Bristol Channel and English Channel have been flooded. The land is also still recovering from the deposition of ice on northern parts in the last ice age. Thus southern England is sinking while Scotland is rising. In some cases it has been decided to not defend areas against sea encroachments in storms, such as in Porlock bay, while valuable areas are being protected. The Thames Barrier was completed in 1994 to prevent flooding in the upper Thames estuary.
Read more about this topic: Maritime History Of The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the word coast:
“The Boston papers had never told me that there were seals in the harbor. I had always associated these with the Esquimaux and other outlandish people. Yet from the parlor windows all along the coast you may see families of them sporting on the flats. They were as strange to me as the merman would be. Ladies who never walk in the woods, sail over the sea. To go to sea! Why, it is to have the experience of Noah,—to realize the deluge. Every vessel is an ark.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It cannot but affect our philosophy favorably to be reminded of these shoals of migratory fishes, of salmon, shad, alewives, marsh-bankers, and others, which penetrate up the innumerable rivers of our coast in the spring, even to the interior lakes, their scales gleaming in the sun; and again, of the fry which in still greater numbers wend their way downward to the sea.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)