Steart Coastal Management Project
Steart Peninsula, Somerset, UK · 2012-2014 (Completed September 2014) · £20 million (some sources state £30 million)
The judgement call
Account-gated at launchThe project is an example of working with nature to combat the challenges of rising sea levels and more frequent, violent winter storms. - It aims to replace about half of the predicted loss of inter-tidal habitat in the Severn Estuary due to rising sea levels. - The salt marsh acts as a natural flood risk management scheme, reducing wave height and energy, which in turn reduces maintenance costs and prolongs the life of newly constructed flood banks. - Community engagement was important, with villagers of the Steart Peninsula supporting the idea and helping to shape it. - The scheme has been controversial, with some critics arguing the money could be better spent on other flood defence projects.
Key engineering challenges
Implementing a large-scale managed realignment scheme to open up farmland to regular tidal inundation. - Creating a 250-hectare salt marsh designed to protect local communities and sea walls from erosion by naturally absorbing high tides and storm-whipped waves. - Balancing flood protection with habitat creation and addressing concerns from local residents and politicians about the use of agricultural land. - Managing the construction in an area with the second largest tidal range in the world (Severn Estuary).
Project facts
- Client / owner
- Environment Agency; Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT)
- Lead contractor
- —
- Lead designers
- Jacobs (support)
- Project type
- new build | managed realignment
- Scale
- One of the UK's largest coastal habitat creation schemes; restored over 400 ha (990 acres) of natural habitat; created a 250-hectare (617-acre) salt marsh; involved moving half a million cubic metres of soil; created a 200-metre gap in the River Parrett coastal embankment; protects local communities and National Grid connections to Hinkley Point power station.
- Disciplines
- civil; coastal engineering; environmental; ecological engineering; hydraulic
- Standards & frameworks
- Relevant UK coastal flood and erosion risk management strategies; aims to restore habitats and mitigate flood risk.
Sources: "Restoring saltmarshes to store carbon, reduce flooding and...", Jacobs, https://www.jacobs.com/projects/steart-coastal-management-project - "£20m salt marsh project to create wildlife habitat and fight...", The Guardian, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/08/20m-pound-salt-marsh-somerset-wildlife-habitat-fights-sea-erosion - "Biggest coastal flood management scheme completed", GOV.UK, 2014, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/biggest-coastal-flood-management-scheme-completed - "Delivering Large Habitat Restoration Schemes: Lessons from the Steart Coastal Management Project", ResearchGate, 2015, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nigel-Pontee/publication/322601168_Delivering_Large_Habitat_Restoration_Schemes_Lessons_from_the_Steart_Coastal_Management_Project/links/5a6217f4aca272a158184135/Delivering-Large-Habitat-Restoration-Schemes-Lessons-from-the-Steart-Coastal-Management-Project.pdf