Changing Landscapes Research Group

Monitoring the Present

Human exploitation of the natural environment has resulted in significant changes in the landscape over recent centuries. From the construction of sea defences in the coastal lowlands, to the extraction of natural resources in on- and off-shore environs, and the increase in human occupation in vulnerable floodplain and tectonically unstable settings to cater for population growth, human ingenuity has enabled such landscape utilisation in areas previously deemed unsuitable for exploitation. However, such actions have significant geological, environmental, ecological, socio-economic and management risks and consequences associated with them. This results in the need for environmental monitoring of the landscape to be undertaken in order to assess whether the impacts of such landscape changes are safe, sustainable, economically viable and indeed suitable for all sectors of society (including minority groups such as disabled and ethnic groups). Monitoring of the coastal zone is one example where empirical evidence requires constant collation in order to assess the contemporary spatial and temporal impact of human occupation and resource exploitation. The direct and indirect consequences of such coastal zone activity can include changes to erosion, transport and deposition within previously defined coastal sediment cells, coastal habitat loss and subsequent effects on ecology and biodiversity, sea-level rise and coastal flooding and the impact of coastal management strategies on proximal coastlines. This is one example of how the Group hope to utilise environmental monitoring within the changing contemporary landscape.