Coastal Heritage and Climate Change in England: Assessing Threats and Priorities

Abstract

There are now strong grounds for thinking that the rates of coastal processes will increase in the future, and that this speeding up is at least partly due to the impact of climate change on the coastline. The focus of this paper is on England only, primarily the impact of coastal change specifically upon archaeology rather than on the wider historic environment, but acknowledging, though not referencing here, the work of colleagues in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland on coastal and marine survey which contributes so much to our understanding of the processes and impacts of coastal change. The paper discusses the different climate change impacts on the coastal and maritime historic environment, including direct physical impacts, indirect impacts that are a consequence of decisions taken now by coastal managers anticipating future climate change, and indirect impacts related to attempts at climate change mitigation.