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Shingle restoration methods - summary
Restoring coastal vegetated shingle can be considered under three headings:
- Preventing erosion and flooding by over-topping (essentially engineering
activities);
- Promoting or allowing natural processes such as roll-over;
- Restoring
vegetation.
There is a tension between the methods adopted for coastal defence (heading
1) and allowing natural processes to operate on shingle beaches (heading 2)
when considering the restoration of coastal vegetated shingle. Vegetation only
develops when the shingle is stable for periods that are long enough for seedlings
(or vegetative propagules) to become established. However many activities associated
with coastal defence also destroy vegetation.
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General guidance: The key to successful restoration lies in the
areas being left for the natural processes to allow the re-creation of
form and function to the shingle beaches and structures. Left to their
own devises vegetation will develop. This may take some time (in the case
of the most mature communities possibly hundreds of years). Although the
process of vegetation establishment can be aided by seeding and planting,
this may require regrading of shingle surfaces, itself involving engineering
works.
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