Ocean & Coastal Management 54 (2011) 859e866

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Ocean & Coastal Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ocecoaman

Concepts and science for coastal erosion management e An introduction

to the CONSCIENCE framework
Marcel Marchand a, *, Agustin Sanchez-Arcilla b, Maria Ferreira c, Jeremy Gault d, Jos A. Jimnez b,
nica
 f, Wojciech Sulisz g, James Sutherland h
Marina Markovic e, Jan Mulder a, Leo van Rijn a, Adrian Sta
a

Deltares, P.O. Box 177, 2600 MH Delft, The Netherlands

Laboratori dEnginyeria Martima, Universitat Politcnica de Catalunya, C/ Jordi Girona, 1-3 Ed. D1 Campus Nord, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
EUCC Mediterranean Centre, Consorci El Far, C.Escar 6-8, Modulo 10a, 08039 Barcelona, Spain
d
Coastal and Marine Resources Centre, Environmental Research Institute, University College Cork, Naval Base, Haulbowline, Cobh, Co. Cork, Ireland
e
United Nations Environment Programme, Mediterranean Action Plan, Priority Actions Programme Regional Activity Centre (PAP/RAC), Kraj Sv. Ivana 11, HR-21000 Split, Croatia
f
Geoecomar, Dimitrie Onciul Street 23-25, Sector 2, Bucharest, Romania
g
Institute of Hydroengineering, Polish Academy of Sciences (IBW/PAN), Ul. Koscierska 7, Gdansk, Poland
h
HR Wallingford, Howbery Park, Benson Lane, Wallingford, United Kingdom
b
c

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Available online 6 July 2011

The main objective of the CONSCIENCE project was to develop and test concepts, guidelines and tools for the
sustainable management of erosion along the European coastline, based on the best available scientic
knowledge and on existing practical experience. Four concepts are potentially capable of providing the
nexus between scientic knowledge and management: coastal resilience, coastal sediment cell,
favourable sediment status and strategic sediment reservoir. The project has tested the use of these
concepts and found that they are useful, provided that they are positioned and linked within a logical
structure that we shall call the CONSCIENCE Frame of Reference, dened in time and space and supported
through data and monitoring. Practical experience in six coastal sites in Europe has shown that the use of
this Frame of Reference together with these concepts can make management objectives explicit and
transparent. It can therefore support the design of an appropriate, resilience based coastal erosion
management practice.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Coastal erosion in Europe causes signicant economic loss,
ecological damage and societal problems. It was estimated that in
2004 about 20,000 km of the European coast (corresponding to 20%
of coastline) faced serious impacts of coastal erosion (European
Commission, 2004). Loss of property, infrastructure and beach
width annually causes millions of Euros worth of economic
damage, loss of valuable coastal habitat and presents signicant
management issues. At the same time coastal protection is
expensive. Over the past decade Europes total expenses to coastal
protection is estimated to amount to 0.88 billion Euros per year
(European Commission, 2009). The magnitude of the problem of
coastal erosion therefore justies a closer look into the current
practice of erosion control and possible ways to improve it.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 31 15 285 8558; fax: 31 15 285 8582.

E-mail address: marcel.marchand@deltares.nl (M. Marchand).
0964-5691/$ e see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2011.06.005

Furthermore, both the EU Recommendation on ICZM as well as the

Protocol on ICZM in the Mediterranean that recently came into
force (24th March, 2011) call for a proactive, strategic and integrated approach to the management of the coast, with explicit
reference to the problem of coastal erosion and protection.
Current practice regarding coastal erosion management in
Europe shows that measures have generally been designed from
a local perspective, often in a reactive way and with disregard to the
larger time and space domains of sediment processes that are at the
root of the problem (European Commission, 2004). In many
countries a national coastal policy is weak or even non-existent.
Without clear government policy, lack of sufcient funds and
limited public understanding it is hardly surprising that the
approach taken to erosion management is primarily through ad hoc
arrangements.
At the same time scientic knowledge of coastal processes is
already well-developed when compared to previous decades and
available models and monitoring systems are becoming more
sophisticated. However, the scarcity of data and eld observations

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along many coasts, still make it very difcult for coastal managers
to put this knowledge into practice. The EUROSION project, which was
executed on behalf of the EC Directorate General of the Environment, recommended that any policy for coastal erosion should
increase coastal resilience by restoring the sediment balance and
providing space for coastal processes, using the coastal sediment
cell perspective. It also introduced the concepts of favourable
sediment status and strategic sediment reservoir as elements for
a coastal erosion policy (European Commission, 2004). With
information from more than 60 study sites, the EUROSION project was
rst to take stock of the situation of coastal erosion in Europe. With
its recommendations it provided an important impetus for implementing a truly sustainable coastal erosion policy. Questions
remained with respect to the scientic validity and applicability by
coastal managers of the EUROSION approach and concepts. This
prompted the EU to co-fund the CONSCIENCE project with a view to
enhancing the implementation of scientically-based sustainable
coastal erosion management in Europe.
2. The CONSCIENCE project
The three year EU-FP6 CONSCIENCE project was launched in 2007
and was executed by eight European research institutes and
universities. It was coordinated by Deltares, the Netherlands. The
other partners were: The EUCC e Mediterranean Centre (Barcelona, Spain); Coastal & Marine Resources Centre, National University of Ireland (Cork, Ireland); International Centre for Coastal
Resources Research (CIIRC), Catalonia University of Technology
(Barcelona, Spain); HR Wallingford Ltd (Wallingford, United
Kingdom); National Institute for Marine Geology and Geo-ecology
(GEOECOMAR e Bucharest, Romania); Institute of Hydroengineering, Polish Academy of Sciences (Gdansk, Poland) and
Priority Actions Programme Regional Activity Centre (PAP/RAC e
Split, Croatia).
Coastal erosion management lies at the heart of ICZM, as it
addresses one of the major problems in the coastal zone. The
CONSCIENCE project contributed to the implementation of ICZM
principles in coastal erosion management by operationalising the
EUROSION recommendations. The project focused on an evaluation of
scientic validity and management applicability of the four key
concepts of the EUROSION project, i.e. coastal resilience, favourable
sediment status, coastal sediment cell and strategic sediment
reservoir. It used a generic framework to structure these four
concepts into actual coastal management practices and tested this
framework in six pilot sites around Europe. As we will show later in
this paper, from the pilot sites it became apparent that the applicability of the EUROSION concepts in practice is often hampered by
a lack of explicit policy choices, based on general ICZM principles
that should underlie actions in dealing with coastal erosion. First
we will describe the concepts themselves, introduce the framework
used in the project and evaluate the concepts from a scientic,
policy and management perspective.
3. The four concepts
The EUROSION project recommended that management plans for
coastal erosion should be based on the principle of working with
natural processes (European Commission, 2004). It proposed four
concepts to assist in making this principle operational:
-

coastal sediment cell,

coastal resilience,
favourable sediment status, and
strategic sediment reservoir.

3.1. Coastal sediment cell

The coastal sediment cell can be dened as a coastal compartment that contains a complete cycle of sedimentation including
sources, transport paths and sinks (European Commission, 2004).
The cell boundaries delineate the geographical area within which
the budget of sediment is determined, which is essential for
a quantitative analysis of coastal erosion and accretion. In this
respect, coastal sediment cells are supposed to constitute the most
appropriate units for achieving the objective of favourable sediment status and hence coastal resilience.
3.2. Coastal resilience
Coastal resilience is dened by EUROSION as the inherent ability of
the coast to accommodate changes induced by sea level rise,
extreme events and occasional human impacts, whilst maintaining
the functions fullled by the coastal system in the longer term
(European Commission, 2004).
Natural resilience varies between different coastal types:
a beach dune coast can be more resilient than a cliff coast because
of the self restoring capacity of dunes, provided there is enough
sediment and time for this natural process to take place.
Note that this denition does not require that a coastline
remains in an equilibrium state. Especially on longer time scales
most coasts are evolving systems and are not necessarily in equilibrium (Klein et al., 1998). Coastal resilience therefore should also
refer to coastal functions: adaptability of functions and uses to
natural uctuations of the coastline increase coastal resilience.
Permanent constructions close to the sea decrease coastal resilience. An example of how a coastal function can be compatible with
a uctuating coastline is beach recreation: during the storm season
(autumn, winter) beach and dune erosion does not interfere with
recreation as long as during the calm seasons the beach regains
sufcient width again. Flexibility in recreational facilities such as
semi-permanent beach pavilions and restaurants is an adaptation
strategy to these natural variations well known to many coastal
areas.
3.3. Favourable sediment status
EUROSION proposed the introduction of the concept of favourable
sediment status as the cornerstone for sustainable shoreline
management to European legislation but the actual implementation has not yet been realised. It can be dened as the situation
where the availability of coastal sediments supports the objective
of promoting coastal resilience in general and of preserving
dynamic coastlines in particular. A neutral or positive sediment
balance is usually required to arrive at this favourable status. It is
expected that a rise in sea level results in a higher demand, which if not supplied - will lead to coastline retreat.
It was further stated that a favourable sediment status for the
coastal zone shall be achieved for each coastal sediment cell principally through sediment management including nourishments
and the designation of strategic sediment reservoirs in combination
with traditional measures such as spatial planning, building regulations and environmental assessment procedures (European
Commission, 2004).
3.4. Strategic sediment reservoirs
Strategic sediment reservoirs, as dened by EUROSION, are
supplies of sediment of appropriate characteristics that are available for replenishment of the coastal zone, either temporarily (to
compensate for losses due to extreme storms) or in the long term

M. Marchand et al. / Ocean & Coastal Management 54 (2011) 859e866

(at least 100 years). They can be identied offshore, in the coastal
zone (both above and below low water) and in the hinterland.
It is recognised that many coastal erosion problems are caused
by a human induced (directly, i.e. in the coastal zone, or indirectly
as for instance in river catchments) imbalance in the sediment
budget. Natural sediment sources are depleted by sand mining
activities, trapped in river reservoirs or xed by coastal engineering
structures. Restoring this balance will require identifying areas
where essential sediment processes occur, and identifying strategic
sediment reservoirs from where sediment can be taken without
endangering the natural balance.
4. Making the concepts operational
Although these concepts may sound rational and applicable,
they are not commonly used as such in everyday practice. A small
scale questionnaire, executed by the CONSCIENCE project, revealed
that almost none of the interviewed coastal policy makers and
practitioners are familiar with these concepts. Even scientists who
have already used the coastal sediment cell concept for quite some
time are unfamiliar with the other concepts. Interestingly, the
concepts seem to appeal because of their hybrid character: there is
a certain scientic connotation to each of them, but also hint at
policy relevance. Words such as favourable, and strategic
certainly ask for further clarication in a policy context. Resilience
may refer to a factual property of a system (cf. Holling, 1973), but
can also be used in a strategic policy context (cf. De Bruijn, 2005).
Because of their hybrid character, there is a risk in the use of the
concepts. It is quite possible that after scrutiny, some of concepts
fail to be scientically robust, because of their subjective character.
On the other hand, it is possible that the concepts are useful in
policy making because they are multi-interpretable.
In order to study the usefulness of the concepts, we have viewed
their character from three different perspectives, each with its own
prompting questions to steer our work:

Strategic
level

Strategic objective

Tactical
level

- Policy relevance: can the concepts be linked to coastal zone

management policy?;
- Scientic validity: does the concept relate to a theory? Is there
empirical evidence linked to the concept? Is there a body of
knowledge to refer to?;
- Practical usefulness in management: can the concept be
measured? Can it be embedded in the management process?

Tactical objective

861

The reason why these three perspectives have been chosen is

that the presented concepts, which t well in each of these
perspectives, are also likely to be very useful in coastal zone
management.
4.1. The policy relevance perspective
4.1.1. The frame of reference
In order to understand the role of these concepts in policy making
and management, the CONSCIENCE project used the Frame of Reference, as introduced by Van Koningsveld (2003). This framework was
developed especially to promote effective interaction between
coastal science and coastal management. The Frame of Reference
was applied as a tool for communication about coastal management
problems in several previous studies (Van Koningsveld and Mulder,
2004; Davidson et al., 2007). Characteristics of the Frame of Reference are the denition of clear objectives at strategic and tactical
levels and an operational decision recipe involving four steps (Fig.1).
At the highest (policy) level a strategic objective is formulated, based
on the long-term vision about desired development of the coast. This
vision should be the outcome of a participatory process of all
stakeholders framed in an ICZM process based on generic ideas
about sustainable development and should ideally reect the
interdependency of the natural and socioeconomic coastal systems.
At the next level, one or more objectives are formulated
describing in more detail what has to be carried out in order to
achieve the strategic objective. As this implies a choice between
different tactics, we call these the tactical objective(s). If, for
instance, at a strategic level the objective formulated is sustainable
development of coastal values and functions, then at the tactical
level we have to choose between different options, such as maintaining the coastline at its current position (i.e. not allowing
erosion), or allowing a certain variability in coastline position.
The attempted application of the Frame of Reference at the six
pilot sites revealed that the principles of ICZM, (as identied under
the EU Recommendation (EU, 2002) and Box 1 below) remain
relevant to coastal managers and their respective stakeholders
faced with the challenges of implementing management strategies
on eroding coastlines. For the Frame of Reference to succeed it
needs to foster an inclusive approach and encourage a range of
stakeholders to participate in the planning of their coastal protection strategy through the identication of specic objectives. It
promotes the development of an understanding of the natural

WHY
WHY
OK?

WHAT
WHAT

OK?

WHO

Operational
level

1. Quantitative State
Concepts

2. Benchmarking
procedure

3. Intervention

4. Evaluation procedure

HOW
HOW

Desired state

WHERE
WHERE

Current state

WHEN
WHEN

Fig. 1. Generic Frame of Reference for coastal management.

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M. Marchand et al. / Ocean & Coastal Management 54 (2011) 859e866

Box 1. Principles of Integrated Coastal Zone Management.

 Think ahead e by thinking beyond traditional planning
time frames, to plan for long-term issues such as
climate change.
 Try to see the bigger picture e by taking both the land
and marine dimensions of the coastal zone into
consideration in planning and management.
 Be flexible and adaptable e by taking a learning by
doing approach to management.
 Work with nature rather than against it e by recognising the limitations of the coastal systems for assimilating pollution and the negative impacts of
development and human activity.
 Use a combination of tools - by using techniques such
as awareness raising, technology, legal and policy
instruments to achieve management objectives.

processes that shape the coastline at specic locations. The Frame

of Reference supports the establishment of continuous, structured
monitoring programmes to assess local changes in order to develop
long-term management plans. It can inform local populations of
the type and scale (physical and economic) of adaptive management measures they may have to put in place in order to reduce the
potential direct or indirect impacts of coastal erosion. It includes
feedback loops to assess the outcomes of any intervention and
suggests that local change be assessed in the wider context of the
entire sediment cell. The application of the Frame of Reference can
identify the range of management instruments currently in place
and by iteration can highlight where these need to revised or
augmented by additional instruments. As a result, the Frame of
Reference could be considered an essential tool to support the
implementation of an ICZM process at locations subject to erosion.
Once this tactical objective has been dened, the actual
management process regarding interventions can be formulated
through four steps, namely:
1. Quantitative state concept: a means of quantifying the problem
in hand. Coastal state indicators (CSIs) (i.e. specic parameters
that play a role in decision-making) are relevant at this stage of
the process.
2. Benchmarking process: a means of assessing whether or not
action is required. CSIs are compared to a threshold value at
this stage.
3. Intervention procedure: A detailed denition of what action is
required if the benchmark values are exceeded.
4. Evaluation procedure: Impact assessment of the action taken. If
the action was not successful it may be necessary to revise the
strategic/operational objectives (hence the feedback loops in
Fig. 1).
Having formulated the strategic and tactical objectives, the
operational management is largely a matter for coastal practitioners and experts. In the benchmarking procedure the current
state of the coast is compared with the desired state, after which
the need for intervention is determined. The procedure describes
the kind of information that is needed and how it is collected.
Ideally a monitoring programme should be in place which would
enable a proactive response. Simulation models can be used to
predict future coastal behaviour based on historic data.
4.1.2. How do the concepts t in the frame of reference?
Coastal resilience, in a normative way, can be used as a guiding
principle when formulating a strategic objective for coastal erosion

policy. It ts in the goal of sustainable development, under the

assumption that enhancing coastal resilience implies working with
natural processes and thus is more efcient in the long run than
using a strategy based on resisting the natural dynamics.
Examples of resilient objectives are Managed realignment and
Do nothing. However, even an objective such as Hold the line could
allow for some resilience, for instance by using nourishment to
replace losses and maintain a healthy beach. With the exception of
very rigid coasts, it is often not necessary to demand that at any point
in time and space the coastline should be at a pre-dened position.
Allowing some exibility in this criterion would enable the coastline
to uctuate around an average position, which is much more efcient. For example, the Dutch denition of the coastline relates to
a volume of sand around the mean low water line, instead of a xed
line. This denition allows redistribution of sediment close to the
coastline without changing the formal coastline position.
The concepts of coastal sediment cell, strategic sediment
reservoir and favourable sediment status can be used for implementation of erosion management at the operational level:
- The coastal sediment cell is the most logical unit to express the
sediment situation. Therefore, the coastal cells concept can be
used in denitions of the quantitative state of the coast (step 1).
- Favourable sediment status is an expression of the desired state
of our coast and can be used for the benchmarking procedure
(step 2).
- The strategic sediment reservoir is an essential component of
the quantitative state of the coast (step 1), and can also be used
as a sediment supply for nourishments as an intervention
measure (step 3).
Hence, it seems that all EUROSION concepts have a logical niche in
the CONSCIENCE Frame of Reference. Assuming the Frame as a model
that captures all the necessary steps for coastal erosion management we may conclude that the four concepts indeed have policy
relevance for coastal erosion management. Their role is especially
relevant in the implementation of a sustainable policy aimed at
respecting or working with natural processes.
4.2. The scientic validity perspective
A review of the main body of coastal scientic literature since
2004 has provided little or no publication on the strategic
management of erosion. The majority of peer-reviewed papers on
coastal erosion is limited to operational responses primarily at
a localised scale. What is clear is that there is a predominance of
sea-level rise/implications of climate change-type papers, which
emphasise the need for an integrated management approach to
climate change.
Our review revealed a limited number of publications using
some of the EUROSION concepts. We did not nd a reference to
favourable sediment status. With respect to the application of the
coastal sediment cell, we found several recent publications
explicitly referring to this concept. The concept has been widely
used in environmental impact studies and in developing coastal
zone management plans, for instance in the United States (Collen
et al., 2009) and the British Isles (Cooper and Pontee, 2006). Also
in the Netherlands the concept is rmly rooted in the existing
coastal policy (Mulder et al., 2011). The concept dates back to the
60s of the last century (e.g. Bowen and Inman, 1966; Inman and
Frautschy, 1966; Davies, 1974). Orford (1987) considered the denition of littoral cells and sediment budgets as one of the major new
contributions in coastal geomorphology.
Cooper and Pontee (2006) provide a review of the historic
approach to coastal zone management and describe the reasons for

M. Marchand et al. / Ocean & Coastal Management 54 (2011) 859e866

the introduction of the littoral sediment cell concept to shoreline

management planning in England and Wales. The adoption of the
sediment cell approach in coastal management in England and
Wales has enabled a change from the historical reactive management philosophy to a forward planning proactive approach. They
conclude that the limitations of using the cell concept stem from
the need to consider the various elements that contribute to coastal
systems, the interactions between them over various spatial and
temporal scales and the different transport modes of different
sediment grain sizes.
With respect to the concept of strategic sediment reservoir no
precise matches have been found in the literature. The paper by
Fontolan et al. (2007) comes close to using the concept, although it
does not name it explicitly. It concludes that when coupled with
sedimentological data, the sand stored in ebb delta may be classied using GIS and catalogued following the volume, mean grain
size and sorting, thus providing a useful tool for a preliminary
assessment of sediment compatibility for possible re-nourishment
of neighbouring beaches subject to erosion.
With respect to the concept of coastal resilience, several recent
articles focus on the ability of coastal ecosystems to respond to
external stresses (e.g. Alongi, 2008; Long et al., 2006). In the literature there is very limited reference to the geomorphological
resilience. One of the most appropriate articles is that of Klein et al.
(1998), that describes the self-organising ability of a coast to
respond in a sustainable manner to morphological, biological and/
or socioeconomic pressures. Long et al. (2006) use the denition of
Klein et al. and state that this concept is useful from a morphological perspective as it helps to understand the ability of a coastal
landform to respond to external drivers that include relative sea
level (RSL) rise, an increase in storm magnitude/frequency, or a fall
in sediment supply. A morphologically resilient coast is one that
can maintain its long-term form despite experiencing short-term
variations in the forcing processes, including sediment supply, on
which it depends.
In general we may conclude that these concepts can be made
operational in a scientic manner, provided that the temporal and
spatial dimensions are made explicit as boundary conditions.
4.3. Practical usefulness in management perspective
Besides the scientic connotation of the four coastal erosion
concepts, their practical usefulness depends on the operational
management perspective: can they really help the coastal practitioner? This largely depends on the possibility to link data from
measurements or models of the coastal system to the concepts.
Once again the Frame of Reference provides a useful guidance. By
using the Frame of Reference it becomes possible to identify when
data is key to informing coastal erosion management decisions.
First of all data on the contemporary coastal condition is required
for benchmarking: i.e. comparing the current state of the coast with
a preferred situation. Secondly, data is needed for the evaluation of
measures: do the measures bring the state of the coast closer to the
desired state? For these comparisons it is necessary to dene
Coastal State Indicators (CSIs). CSIs can be described as a reduced set
of parameters that can simply, adequately and quantitatively describe
the dynamic-state and evolutionary trends of a coastal system. In
other words, CSIs relay a complex message in a simple and useful
manner (Jimnez and Van Koningsveld, 2002). These indicators
should adequately describe the quantitative state of a coastal
sediment cell, allowing a comparison with threshold conditions in
the benchmarking step.
Examples of CSIs found in the pilot sites of CONSCIENCE are beach
width, dune strength, shoreline position and coastal slope. Generally
the choice of a CSI depends on the specic objective for

863

management, but also on the relative ease with which the indicator
can be measured and how much data is already present, to enable
historic analyses. These indicators are described using the coastal
sediment cell as primary spatial unit, the delineation of which also
depends on the time frame for management. In general one may
say that the longer the time horizon one is interested in, the larger
the coastal cell should be dened. For instance, for everyday safety
we need to zoom in to the condition of the coast up to metres or
hundreds of metres. For adaptation to sea level rise we dene the
coastal cell at the scale of tens to hundreds of kilometres (see also
the example of the Dutch coast in Mulder et al, 2011).
Once CSIs have been dened also a favourable sediment status
can be determined. In fact this summarises the status of a coastline
that integrates both processes through CSIs and availability of
sediment within or outside the coastal cell into a single metric.
Besides data and indicators, coastal practitioners also require
forecasting skills. They will use their local knowledge and experience in conjunction with the current status of the coast in order to
decide when it is time to intervene. Should this intervention have
signicant nancial and economic consequences, it is important to
minimise uncertainty regarding its effectiveness and efciency.
Models play an increasingly important role in this respect. A variety
of modelling approaches for the evaluation of coastal morphology
has been developed over the last decades and the resulting models
have proven to be quite powerful in representing the dominant
physical processes in coastal cells with respect to various kinds of
hard and soft engineering measures (Capobianco et al., 2002). In
another contribution to this special issue, Leo van Rijn discusses the
use of various numerical modelling techniques as well as experimental results of laboratory tests for predicting coastal erosion.
With respect to determining strategic sediment reservoirs data
is required on the volume that is actually available for use, the grain
size, sorting and sometimes the level of pollution. Modern techniques allow for efcient stock assessments for sand nourishments,
often used by major dredging companies.
Quantifying coastal resilience is not straightforward because of
the different denitions used. In morphological terms, the concept
of coastal resiliencehas been used to describe the dynamics of the
shorelines (Baan et al., 1997; Klein et al., 1998; Ruessink and Jeuken,
2002). Generally, these descriptions use a ratio between the natural
variation of the coastline and the room to move as a measure of
resilience.
4.4. Conclusion
Based on the overview from the three perspectives we may
conclude that:
- coastal resilience can be used as an inherent property of the
coastline and can be measured, provided that it is clearly
dened in time and space. Generally speaking, soft coasts could
show a resilient behaviour if they are in a dynamic equilibrium.
But this is often true only on relatively short time frames. On
the scale of decades to centuries, and especially geological time
scales, coasts are evolving, and not in equilibrium. Coastal
resilience is also useful in a normative way, as a guiding principle for formulating objectives and measures.
- the coastal sediment cell is a useful concept and already used in
scientic work. Because cells are never completely closed, their
spatial delineation depends on the time frame of the planning
objective.
- favourable sediment status has not been rmly rooted in
scientic literature. It is primarily a concept that can be used in
policy making. Its use needs a detailed analysis of sediment
budgets.

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M. Marchand et al. / Ocean & Coastal Management 54 (2011) 859e866

- for a strategic sediment reservoir the volume, grain size, sorting

and level of pollution are important aspects for labelling
a reservoir as strategic. Probably also the distance, juridical
connotations and spatial planning aspects require attention,
but these aspects have up till now not been studied in the
scientic literature.
To what extent the CONSCIENCE Frame of Reference and the
EUROSION concepts are applicable in a practical management context
was also tested in each of the six CONSCIENCE pilot sites (see Fig. 2). In
this Special Issue of Ocean and Coastal Management the ndings
from each of the sites are documented in separate articles. In the
last paper (Snchez-Arcilla and Jimnez, 2011) the ndings from
each of these pilot sites are compared and summarised. Below the
pilot sites and their experiences with the CONSCIENCE approach are
introduced.
5. Brief introduction to the pilot sites
5.1. The Dutch coast (the Netherlands) (Mulder et al., 2011)
The Dutch coast between Den Helder and Cadzand consists of
straight sandy beaches and various large-scale tidal inlet coasts.
Coastal erosion is a common feature along the Dutch sandy
shorelines. Since 1990 a policy has been adopted that aims at
controlling structural erosion mainly through sand nourishments.
Development of this policy has implicitly been guided by a basic
Frame of Reference. Also the four key concepts of EUROSION each
represent an important building stone in this policy.
5.2. Hel peninsula (Poland)
Built of sandy sediments, the Hel Peninsula is a lowland strip of
land at the northern part of Poland between the Baltic sea and
Gdansk Bay. It is relatively long (34 km) and at places very narrow
(about 200 m wide at minimum) with a high risk of breaching. The
Peninsula constitutes a part of the coastal landscape park and is
a famous recreational resort for the Polish and foreign tourists.
Along the Peninsula, there is a railway and a road connecting 5
small towns and villages. Erosion has been a problem since the
beginning of the last century and sand nourishment is currently the

most important controlling measure. Sources of sediment are

limited due to polluted sediment layers and ecological disturbance.
Past erosion management was hampered greatly by a shortage
of eld data on waves, currents and morphological processes. The
Frame of Reference has been used in this pilot to make management goals as well as data needs more explicit.
nica
 et al., 2011)
5.3. The Danube delta coast (Romania) (Sta
The pilot site is part of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve,
which has a nature protection status. Its northern and central part
has been subject to historical erosion, due to the existing natural
trend involving the Danube Delta evolution. Human interventions
resulted in an increase in the intensity of the erosion. For instance,
the central part of the Sulina e Sf. Gheorghe coastal strip is subject
to the most severe erosion along the entire Romanian Black Sea
coast with areas in retreat at a rate of about 20 m/yr. Coastal
managers must now decide whether or not to protect the studied
coastal strip from erosion, and, if yes, which is the most acceptable
option. The application of the CONSCIENCE Framework provided
a useful and well organised tool to identify both the problems and
the steps to offer solutions to these problems.
5.4. Costa Brava Bays (Spain) (Jimnez et al., 2011)
The Costa Brava is located on the NE Spanish Mediterranean
coast. It is a highly indented coast with most of the coastline
composed of cliffs, especially in the northernmost area. Bayed and
pocket beaches are the dominant beach type, with most of them
composed of coarse sands which are represented in the CONSCIENCE
project by sAbanell and Lloret de Mar beaches. The beaches have
the following prole: i) relatively narrow beaches backed by
waterfronts and ii) heavily used during the bathing season. The
typical length scale of these beaches varies from hundreds of
metres to few kilometres with one or two lateral obstacles (semi
enclosed and pocket beaches, respectively). The sites have been
used to test the Frame of Reference at the beach scale and
a favourable sediment status has been dened for these beaches
taking into account their main functions, being recreation and
protection. Up till now the concept of favourable sediment status
was neither dened nor used in the area, which resulted in a rather
reactive management. The introduction of this concept would
facilitate a long-term policy, which would enable estimations for
long-term sediment requirements. Due to the dominant recreational use of the beaches, the need of good quality sediment is one
of the cornerstones of any measure to manage erosion. At the
regional level this implies that a long-term erosion management
plan should include the identication of strategic sediment
reservoirs.
5.5. Pevensey Bay (United Kingdom) (Sutherland and Thomas,
2011)

Fig. 2. Pilot sites of the CONSCIENCE project (Map source: [1]) 1: Holland coast (the
Netherlands), 2: Hel Peninsula (Poland), 3: Danube Delta coast (Romania), 4: Costa
Brava (Spain), 5: Pevensey Bay (United Kingdom), 6: Inch Beach (Ireland).

PevenseyBay sea defences consist of a 9 km long shingle (gravel)

bank between Eastbourne and Bexhill in East Sussex, on the English
Channel coast of southern England. Immediately inland there is the
Pevensey Levels, an area of about 50 km2, which would be ooded
at high spring tide if the sea defence becomes breached. Many
properties have been constructed on the crest of the shingle bank.
The management of the Pevensey shingle barrier is a unique
example of a public-private partnership. The beach is managed in
an adaptive manner by a private consortium, Pevensey Coastal
Defence Ltd. (PCD). The main focus of the management is to
strengthen the shingle bank to provide a 400 year standard of
protection against breaching. The management issues are related to

M. Marchand et al. / Ocean & Coastal Management 54 (2011) 859e866

the transition from a groyned to a more open beach and moving to

a system that is risk based. The main engineering activities are
shingle replenishment to maintain beach volumes, re-cycling to
move shingle from the down-drift to the up-drift end of the beach,
re-proling to maintain the required cross-section, emergency
response during storms to prevent a breach and capital improvement works.
The Pevensey Bay pilot is an example where the EUROSION
concepts have already been (implicitly) implemented in actual
management except for the strategic sediment reservoir. No sediment reservoir is reserved for beach nourishment, nor is the need
for suitable size of aggregate recognised in the new provisions for
marine spatial planning in the UK. This is an area where the
promotion of this concept could be useful in assuring the provision
of beach nourishment material.
5.6. Inch Strand (Ireland) (Gault et al., 2011)
Inch Spit is a large barrier-dune system located in Dingle Bay,
County Kerry in the South West corner of Ireland. It comprises
a long (c. 5.5 km) expanse of sandy beach (Inch Strand) backed by
an extensive dune system and receives direct Atlantic swell waves
from the west to the shoreface. During the pilot study the Frame of
Reference was used in two ways. First it was used together with the
responsible local manager to depict how current management
operates. The results of this application illustrated that the
approach to erosion management currently omits two fundamental
stages of the Frame of Reference, i.e. the Quantitative State and
Benchmarking Procedure. Stages which are inherently linked to
data availability. Currently, there is no fundamental information
from which to make an informed decision. This results in a reactive
approach to erosion management. The second application of the
Frame of Reference indicated the institutional changes that need to
be made in order to obtain a strategic and sustainable proactive
erosion management.
6. Conclusions
The main objective of the CONSCIENCE project was to develop and
test concepts, guidelines and tools for the sustainable management
of erosion along the European coastline, based on best available
scientic knowledge and on existing practical experience. The
research was focused on decision-making based on the concepts
formulated by the EUROSION project: coastal resilience, coastal sediment cells, favourable sediment status and strategic sediment
reservoirs.
We explored the CONSCIENCE Frame of Reference as a method for
applying the EUROSION concepts for making erosion management
more sustainable. We tested the use of these concepts and found
that they are useful, provided that they are positioned in the Frame
of Reference, dened in time and space and supported through data
and monitoring. Importantly, the concepts have a hybrid character
in the sense that they can be scientically described and measured,
but also ask for a further clarication in a policy context. The Frame
of Reference makes this policy context explicit, since it asks to make
both strategic and tactical objectives explicit.
Although the steps in this Frame are logical and rational, the
practice of erosion management shows that many of them are
omitted or remain implicit. Often measures are taken without an
explicit strategic objective, for instance because a national coastal
zone policy is lacking or insufciently elaborated. Coastal state
indicators are often not monitored regularly and evaluations are
seldom performed. This hampers an effective and sustainable
solution to the problem. It also makes erosion control practices less

865

transparent and thus difcult to engage stakeholders in the

decision-making process.
The pilot site results show that the Frame of Reference can
indeed be instrumental in making management objectives explicit
and transparent. By using such a framework, communication
between practitioners, policy makers and scientists can greatly
improve. It can therefore support the design of an appropriate,
resilience based coastal erosion management practice. It was
concluded that even in data poor situations, such as Inch Beach, the
CONSCIENCE Frame of Reference is very useful and can be effective if
used as an aspirational goal or used to persuade local authorities to
monitor the coast and a national government to develop a policy.
Finally, we would like to stress that Projects ndings, methodology and tools constitute a way to let countries to contribute/
apply recommendations of the Protocol on Integrated Coastal Zone
Management in the Mediterranean (UNEP/MAP/PAP, 2008)
regarding prevention and mitigation of the negative impact of
coastal erosion more effectively.
Acknowledgements
The work described in this paper was supported by the European Communitys Sixth Framework Programme through the grant
to the budget of the Specic Targeted Research Project CONSCIENCE,
Contract No. 044122 (SSPI).
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