Developing management strategies

This study, particularly the site reviews, has highlighted the extent of management activity already being undertaken on many important sites in Great Britain. The ability to manage habitats and species, as well as people, within these areas is in many instances well tried and tested. For some sites (Pagham Harbour, Annex 03; Rye Harbour, Annex 04 and Orfordness, Annex 06) there are readily and easily accessible sources of information on the management techniques which have been adopted. However, this study has only been able to look at six sites (Annexes 01 - 06) due to time and cost constraints. Cley-Salthouse (Annex 07) has been included because it highlights many of the issues surrounding adopting a limited intervention approach to coastal defence. Culbin (Annex 09) and Spey Bay (Annex 08) were included to provide examples of a relatively untouched site and one where regeneration of disturbed / excavated shingle has taken place, respectively. The maps show there are many other vegetated shingle sites in Great Britain (there are also many more in Ireland) and a wealth of further information to be collected and collated on management strategies.

One of the primary aims of this contract was to provide management guidance for vegetated shingle commensurate with that available for the other primary coastal formations namely sand dunes, saltmarshes, sea cliffs, coastal wetlands and grazing marsh(see the Guide "Coastal Habitat Restoration, towards good practice"). However there remain many aspects of the management of coastal vegetated shingle that have only been covered in a relatively superficial way.

Recommendation: In order to fill in the gaps in knowledge both geographically and in more depth a further study should be carried out. This should look in more detail at specific issues such as the context within which the individual site exists and more specifically at management issues such as grazing , significance of vegetation control in relation to ground-nesting birds and control of recreational activities. This should look more widely at the interplay between the different elements of individual sites (see also for example the relationship between plant species, vegetation structure and invertebrates).