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Restoring shingle vegetation - summary
Unlike sand dunes (and to some extent saltmarsh) plants play only a limited
role in stabilising shingle structures. Because of this there have been few
attempts to re-establish vegetation on shingle. However, because of the loss
of stable vegetated shingle and the need to restore vegetation to compensate
for damage during construction of the nuclear power station at Sizewell in Suffolk,
a series of studies have looked at several approaches, namely:
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General guidance: Natural regeneration on a newly created shingle
beach at Black
Rock, Brighton has identified a number of factors critical
to plant colonisation. These will be of value in establishing suitable
conditions for establishing vegetation on newly restored shingle areas.
Other attempts have also been made in shingle nature reserves on the south
coast, these are described in annexes to the "Guide
to management and restoration of coastal vegetated shingle".
Another important issue in restoring shingle vegetation is the beach
profile and its role in plant survival.
Note: a trial to recreate a surface shingle profile suitable for
plant colonisation by regrading
shingle was tried at Orfordness but proved ineffective and costly.
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References
Walmsley, C.A. & Davy, A.J.
2001.
Habitat creation and restoration of damaged shingle communities.
In: Ecology & Geomorphology of Coastal Shingle, eds.Packham, J.R., Randall, R.E., Barnes, R.S.K. & Neal, A.Westbury Academic and Scientific Publishing, 409-420.
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