State 5 - excavated shingle

Definition: Excavation takes place to below the water table, helping to create coastal gravel pits.

This fifth state has been included in this guide (rolled into State 4 above in the Guide "Coastal Habitat Restoration, towards good practice"), which takes account of those areas where excavation is at or below the water table, for all or most of the time.

Pressures to excavate onshore deposits of shingle are enormous. This is the most usually encountered and often most extensive form of habitat loss. In these cases the shingle void, because it is excavated to below the water table, results in an open water 'gravel pit' State 5 condition. Generally, excavated shingle areas are considered to have a reduced value for nature conservation because of the loss of the specialist and rare plant communities that make up the vegetated shingle habitat. There are, however, replacement values associated with the open water and the creation of new wetland habitat such as the creation of roosting, feeding and breeding habitats for birds, and the creation of saline lagoons. Restoration of the gravel surface and vegetated shingle (including those communities defined in the 'Habitats' Directive) is not possible. The replacement values associated with developing this habitat are thus not comparable with the restoration envisaged in moving from State 4 (Disturbed/Excavated) to State 3 (Stable).

Caption: Newly excavated gravel pits at Dungeness, Kent on land owned by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). A large part of these areas have subsequently become part of an extensive wetland nature reserve. The picture was taken in 1980 before the RSPB stopped selling gravel-winning concessions at the site.

Comment: Although generally excavated shingle areas have a reduced value for nature conservation, there are replacement values associated with the open water gravel pits, particularly those associated with birds of coastal wetland.