Beach Management: Principles and Practice
Beach Management: Principles and Practice & ( Eds ) London : Earthscan , 2011 . 445 pp. ISBN: 978-1-84971-307-8. Paperback: £34.99 .
‘Dear authors: thanks for ruining my carefree beach vacation…’
‘Where’s the beach?’ This question – on the title page of TIME magazine back in August 1987 – wasn’t asking for directions to the shore but rather bemoaned the increasing loss of beaches in the USA and around the globe. The deterioration and disappearance of beaches is therefore a long-recognized problem. Modern society desires predictable, stable environments, and the dynamic nature of beaches simply doesn’t fit the bill. Everything we have done in the past with regard to beach ‘management’ appears to be wrong, with coastal engineering clearly being one culprit.
The range of issues is so broad that it is remarkable that the authors have managed to provide an overview in just under 450 pages. As indicated in the subtitle ‘Principles & Practice’, the book is divided into two parts. The first, consisting of nine chapters, introduces the principles (theories, strategies, policy) behind beach management, including how to determine the best strategies for the different beach types. The second part, consisting of 12 chapters, presents case studies from around the globe.
Overall, the term ‘management’ – whether applied to beaches, other ecosystems or endangered animals and plant species – is a double-edged term with an aftertaste. First, it implies that something has gone wrong or is going wrong, that a real threat exists, and that humans are almost certainly at fault, whether wantonly or well intentioned. Second, it implies that the downward spiral can only be countered with renewed human intervention, i.e. the ecosystem itself simply can’t work without us. Third, the term is often interpreted to mean the need for culling (witness the standpoint of certain countries regarding ‘managing’ whales).
In Part 1, Chapter 1 provides a setting for beach management in the framework of beach types and integrated coastal management. Theory and strategy are dealt with in Chapters 2 and 3, the latter including a range of conceptual models. ‘Integrated’ sounds fine at first glance, although, on the other side of the coin, its goal is to make everyone happy (see below). Guidelines for beach managers are provided in Chapter 4, followed by efforts to gauge beach users’ priorities and preferences based on various questionnaire survey types (Chapter 5 and Appendix 1). The fact that beaches are untamed landscapes and can pose considerable risks and hazards to visitors is outlined in Chapter 6. The tools (analyses and risk assessments) to handle some of these issues are discussed in Chapter 7. Have all these efforts led to successful outcomes for beaches under pressure? Answering this question calls for a stick (rating schemes) and carrot (beach awards) approach, whereby such schemes have apparently generally failed to develop into effective beach management tools (Chapter 8). Finally, Part 1 ends with a Bathing Area Registration and Evaluation scheme and outlines five key criteria reflecting beach quality (safety, water quality, litter, facilities, scenery). Again, sounds great, but it certainly continues to be all about us – not much mention of ecosystem integrity and function.
Has all this knowledge in Part 1 led to unmitigated success stories? In one word, no – and who would expect otherwise? Part 2 works up to this conclusion by presenting a mixture of ‘good/bad/indifferent’ beach management practices in the form of case studies. The safety issue is treated based on the lifeguard movement on UK beaches (Case Study 1). According to WHO, approximately 382,000 people drown each year, and even if only a fraction (UK: 20% of 80–120) are coastal, this is clearly an important issue for managers – litigious society or not. Cars on beaches, a horrible practice that is detrimental to cars, beaches and dunes, and many organisms from plants to sea turtles, is Case Study 2, focusing on Ireland. The threats range from reckless driving, almost unlimited accessibility by certain vehicles (quads), and the inordinate amount of time spent by wardens freeing bogged vehicles. A zoning strategy is discussed.
Case Study 3 is the only one dealing with coastal engineering – a major field of endeavour that suits our ‘can do’ bravado. Interestingly, beach nourishment – dumping millions of tons of sand (presumably taken from a functioning ecosystem nearby) – is regarded as being ‘soft’ engineering. Another perhaps more soft approach is the restoration and maintenance of dune landscapes, including participatory educational programs, dune planting, etc. Again, the impetus for elevating the dunes – in some cases higher than natural counterparts – was to protect people who could not evacuate the area, not ecological considerations. The same holds true for efforts related to housing developments prone to landslides (Case Study 9).
Even the success stories must be taken with a grain of salt. A ‘totally innovative holistic approach’ on Çıralı beach in Turkey arose when the whole community rallied to aid the loggerhead turtle Caretta caretta (Case Study 10). This can be seen as a story actually designed from an ecological or conservation perspective. Better yet, the result was active involvement of the local community as guardians of their natural heritage, including a cooperative for agricultural products and ecotourism development. However, such apparent successes regarding sea turtle conservation in Turkey (increasing nest numbers from 1994 to 2007) are balanced by free-fall decline in others (Fethiye), where rampant development directly on the beach is an obstacle course for turtles and where a proposed drydock/shipyard project would obliterate an entire nesting beach.
Most chapters and case studies are designed to incorporate users (such as in the case study devoted to determining beach user preferences) and, indeed, the focus throughout appears to be needs-based management. Such participatory approaches, however, demand a considerable investment of time and resources along with strong dedication and persuasive efforts by beach managers. Moreover, integrated approaches can sometimes go too far by including those who shouldn’t be made happy if it means compromising the beach ecosystem. One solution, for example espoused in Case Study 2, is to define the spatial scale of the area under discussion such that an appropriate balance is struck between vociferous local residents who may assert preferences (that may block innovation) and engaging a wider audience to provide a mandate for courses of action best suited to the management objective.
This book covers a lot of ground and includes a glossary with 81 acronyms and abbreviations, 15 ‘boxes’, 115 figures and 29 tables. These features, combined with 31 pages of references (>500), make this book a must for a wide range of readers, scientists and non-scientists alike, interested in one of the most popular and abused ecosystems on the planet.
