Pictured above you can see the evolution of the withdrawal of the English coast at the village of Happisburgh in Norfolk, on the banks the North Sea. On the left, the photo was taken in 1986, amid in 1999 and right in 2003.
In the upper part of the picture, you can see that the road from the beach and the houses that lined it disappeared. And bottom of the picture, most of the houses that were in the sea is already extinct, about the houses that line the road obliquely, they will disappear very soon, as you can see in the picture below taken January 25, 2007 :
In the photo above to can see that there were wooden fenders, which were built after the storm of January 31, 1953 where water had risen two feet on the Norfolk coast and had killed 80 people. Well, by a law passed by the British government in late 2006, it was decided that not rebuild the fences, which as you can see from the photo top right, have completely disappeared.
The British government has decided that it was worth the shot to spend money to protect the coast at Happisburgh. The argument of Clive Bates, a senior member of the Environment Agency is: "In fact, whatever we do to reduce émissions de gaz à effet de serre, nous allons devoir faire face à une montée des eaux d'environ un mètre sur la côte est de l'Angleterre pendant les 100 prochaines années. Ou bien nous ne seront pas capable de défendre nos côtes, ou bien cela coûtera trop cher. Un des points les plus délicats pour nous est de décider où nous ne pourrons plus maintenir une défense côtière, et où il faudra dire aux gens de s'en aller."
Pour en savoir plus :
1. Happisburgh coastal erosion (CCAG)
2. Britain abandons coastline defense (Yahoo news)
3. The East Coast Floods of 1953 (EDP24)
Credit: Environment Agency and Mike Page
