Atlantic storminess and historical sand drift in WesternEurope: implications for future management of coastal dunes

Michèle L. Clarke & Helen M. Rendell

Received: 9 September 2009 /Revised: 25 March 2010 /Accepted: 26 March 2010 /Published online: 15 April 2010# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract Historical records of sand drift and dune-buildingalong the coastline of Western Europe provide insights intothe natural processes of sand dune accretion and both theimpacts of, and human responses to, sand incursions. Theanalysis of documentary records, instrumental data andproxy records over the last 1,000 years indicates that thisperiod, which included the Little Ice Age (AD 1570–1900),featured numerous episodes of sand drift and dunedevelopment driven by strong winds associated withAtlantic storms. It is estimated that sand drift affected overa quarter of a million hectares of coastal land in WesternEurope. The widespread use of vegetation to stabilisecoastal dune systems and prevent sand drift is documentedacross Europe from AD 1100 and by the start of the 20thcentury all of the larger coastal dune systems in Portugal,France, Britain and Denmark were comparatively inactive.Given that Atlantic storminess has remained more or lessunchanged over the last 200 years, modern dune manage-ment strategies which consider dune devegetation, drivenby an increasing focus on ‘naturalness’, may give rise to arecurrence of sand drift problems. Predictions of increasedstorm frequencies by the end of the 21st century, coupledwith sea level rise and potential changes in sand supply willpresent further challenges for the more ‘dynamic’ dunemanagement strategies.

Keywords Atlantic storms . Historical sand drift .

Coastal sand dunes . Afforestation

Introduction

Coastal dunefields across Western Europe have respondedto changes in sand supply, wind activity and vegetationcover throughout the Holocene (Clarke and Rendell 2009).As well as providing a first line of defence against flooding,coastal dunefields have also been important sources of rawmaterials (Hewett 1989), managed for game (Baeyens andMartínez 2004) and used for grazing (Heslenfeld et al.2004). However, persistent sand movement inland from thecoast has inundated settlements and agricultural land.Although such ‘sand drift’ has been viewed as simply a“nuisance rather than a danger” (Sherman and Nordstrom1994, p.263), it was the loss of property and livelihoodsthat galvanised the human response to sand drift acrossWestern Europe. By the early 20th century many of thecoastal dunefields of Western Europe were stabilised, somewould argue ‘over stabilised’ (Doody 2001), and yet it isagainst this background of comparative stability thatdebates about dunes as dynamic systems, ‘naturalness’and dune de-vegetation (Nordstrom and Lotstein 1989;Westoff 1989; Wanders 1989; Doody 1989) are being held.

This paper examines some of the records of sand drift,dune development and stabilisation together with theinstrumental and documentary records of Atlantic stormi-ness. We then focus on a series of examples of the changingrelationships between sand drift, storms and society and, inparticular, on the legislative frameworks developed tocombat aspects of sand drift. We use these examples toexplore the implications of dynamic dune management inthe context of future climate change scenarios.

M. L. Clarke (*)School of Geography, University of Nottingham,University Park,Nottingham NG7 2RD, UKe-mail: michele.clarke@nottingham.ac.uk

H. M. RendellDepartment of Geography, Loughborough University,Loughborough LE11 3TU, UKe-mail: H.M.Rendell@lboro.ac.uk

J Coast Conserv (2011) 15:227–236DOI 10.1007/s11852-010-0099-y

Historic records of sand drift

Sand drift has affected much of the coast of WesternEurope, from the long low-lying sandy coastlines ofPortugal, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmarkto the sandy embayments in the rocky coastline of Britainand Ireland. While sea levels over the last 1,000 years havegenerally been within 1 m of current levels (Lambeck 1997;Gehrels et al. 2006), sand drift and dune building haveoccurred in response to a combination of sand supply andsustained wind velocities above the threshold for entrain-ment. This threshold windspeed is dependent on particlesize and dryness of the sand: ranging from about 4 ms−1, asmeasured at 1 m above ground level, for 0.2 mm diameterdry sand to in excess of 10 ms−1 for damp sand (Shermanand Nordstrom 1994). Sand invasion was documentedwhen it resulted in an economic impact (e.g. loss ofagriculturally productive land) or when high status build-ings, especially churches, become inundated with sand. Theearliest historic records of sand drift in Western Europecome from the Netherlands, Portugal, Britain and Franceand predate the start of the Little Ice Age (ca. 1570–1900)(Matthews and Briffa 2005) (Fig. 1). Sand invasion anddune building are first recorded in the 9th century inDenmark (Kjærgaard 1994) and in the mid 10th century inthe Netherlands (Klijn 1990), while in Britain repeatedreferences to sand invasion exist from the 12th century inCornwall (Polsue 1868), from the 13th century in Lanca-shire (Pye and Neal 1993), from the 14th century in Wales(Higgins 1933; Owen 1953) and Orkney and Shetland(Sommerville et al. 2003) and from the early 16th centuryin the Outer Hebrides (Angus and Elliott 1992). By the late13th and early 14th centuries sand invasion was alsothreatening the town of Marinha Grande in Portugal (Pinto1938) and was a problem for villages along the Gasconycoast of southwest France from the late 15th centuryonwards (Clarke et al. 2002). A similar pattern of sanddrift is exhibited in Denmark (Lamb and Frydendahl 1991).By the 18th century sand drift had become a widespreadproblem for Britain, Ireland (Case 1914; Quinn 1977),France and, particularly, Denmark where up to 5% of thecultivated area of Jutland (equivalent to 148,800 ha) wasaffected (Kjærgaard 1994).

Throughout the historic record sand invasion is linked tostorms as the quotations given below demonstrate:

“About one third of the land of the manor was damagedby storm on the feast of St. Nicholas, 6th December1331, when 186 acres were destroyed… by the sea andinflow of sand… The same thing happened along thewhole of the south coast of Anglesey … at ebb tide thesand on the shore dried in the strongwind and got blowninland…Many families were driven out of their crofts..”

North Wales, Ministers Accounts 1152/4 temp.1409(Owen 1953)“Langhern 25th October 1716 to Richard Arundell, Ireturned last night from Connorton Court where Ifound that the last storm has made a great disruptionof the sands at Gwithian whereby several fields are ina manner quite lost.” (Letter from George Bere,Cornwall Record Office AR 10/566)“..it appeared like a heath fire, way up in the air. Theinhabitants came towards me, weeping, showing mehow their properties had been destroyed. A strongnorthwesterly wind was blowing, so they durst nottake me into the sand drift lest we should get lost. Iproceeded notwithstanding, and on entering thisstretch of shifting sand could scarce open an eye.All objects disappeared. Nought was visible butsmoke and sand, causing the sun to appear coppercoloured.” Nørlund Sande, West Jutland, Denmark in1790 (Kjærgaard 1994 p. 21)

As late as the 1890’s severe Atlantic storms continued todrive sand inland in south Wales (Higgins 1933) while sanddrift, burying houses and fields, is recorded in westernIreland until the 1930’s and often linked to the removal ofdune vegetation (Quinn 1977).

The coastal areas of Western Europe affected by sanddrift were substantial and include an estimated 120,000 haof the Gascony dunes in southwest France, 80,000 ha inDenmark, 40,000 ha in Portugal as well as at least 3,000 hain England, 2,400 ha in Wales, 10,500 ha in Scotland and7,600 ha in Ireland; over a quarter of a million hectares intotal. Given the widespread nature of sand drift on WesternEuropean coasts, particularly in the period from the 17th to19th centuries, we now examine whether there have beenany clear trends in Atlantic storminess over this period.

Trends in Atlantic storminess

Atlantic storms are cyclones (low pressure systems) withassociated high winds and storm surges (von Storch andWeisse 2007). Storminess and its persistence have beenestablished using a range of different indicators (Paciorek etal. 2002), with some studies using sea level pressure chartsor other methods to establish cyclone densities andintensities (Bärring and von Storch 2004), while othersfocus on storm surge heights and frequencies (Betts et al.2004) or windspeeds (Dawson et al. 2004). Storminess hasbeen defined by the number of days for with windsvelocities in excess of 13.9 ms−1 (Beaufort Scale 7) arerecorded in any one 6 h measurement period (Qian andSaunders 2003). The high winds associated with stormshave also been characterised by ‘gale days’ or, in more

228 M.L. Clarke, H.M. Rendell

extreme cases, ‘gusts’. The contemporary definition of a‘gale day’ is one in which a wind velocity in excess of17.2 ms−1 (Beaufort Scale 8) is sustained over a 10 minperiod (Dawson et al. 2004). ‘Extreme’ or ‘severe’ stormshave been defined as very deep cyclones with centralpressures less than or equal to 900 hPa (Schinke 1993),‘intense’ cyclones with central pressures less than or equalto 970 hPa (Leckebusch and Ulbrich 2004) or simply asstorms associated with damaging winds and storm surges(Weisse et al. 2005). The establishment of records ofstorminess depends on the choice of indicator (Paciorek etal. 2002) and the continuity and homogeneity of theavailable records. Although wind velocities would at firstappear to be the most obvious indicator of storminess, asused to define contemporary storminess, inhomogeneitiesin the longer term record, as a function of changinginstruments and physical changes in the exposure of such

instruments mean that most long term records are based on(reconstructed) geostrophic winds (Alexandersson et al.1998; Matulla et al. 2008; Wang et al. 2008).

The analysis of geostrophic wind values calculated fromlong (∼ 130 yr) sea level pressure records indicates boththat storminess exhibits high spatial and temporal variabil-ity and that levels of storminess were relatively high in the1880s to 1900s and in the 1980s and early 1990s but havesince declined (Matulla et al. 2008, Wang et al. 2008)(Fig. 2). Documentary records have been used to extend theAtlantic storm record further back in time. This is notstraightforward as definitions of storms and gales areinstrument-based whereas the documentary records involvesemi-quantitative and qualitative data (e.g. Sweeney 2000).Storm frequency records, combining instrumental anddocumentary data, have been constructed for locations inScotland, Ireland and Iceland (Sweeney 2000; Hickey

Fig. 1 Earliest records ofsand drift in Western Europe,grouped by century,superimposed on a map ofEuropean coastal dunes(after Klijn 1990)

Atlantic storminess and historical sand drift in Western Europe 229

2003; Dawson et al. 2004). The Edinburgh winter galefrequency record for 1770 to 1990 (Dawson et al. 2004)shows considerable temporal variability with some wintershaving in excess of 40 gale days in the 1810s, 1830s,1840s, 1880s 1900s, 1960s and 1980s. The Dublin recordof storm frequencies covers the period 1715 to 2000 andthe pattern of monthly to decadal storm frequencies is againhighly variable (Sweeney 2000). In the Dublin record theperiod with the highest storm frequencies are 1750s and theperiod from the 1890s to present. Although it appears easierto establish changing storm frequencies than storm inten-sities, the instrumental record from Dublin of the number ofdays with gusts over 30 ms−1 (Beaufort Scale 11: violentstorm) (Sweeney 2000) shows the 1920s to have been thestormiest decade during the period from 1903 to 1999 ineastern Ireland using this particular criterion. Anotherapproach that allows an intercomparison of storm eventswithin the historical record is the Storm Severity Index(SSI) pioneered by Lamb and Frydendahl (1991) that is theproduct of maximum surface windspeed (in knots) cubed,the maximum area affected in units of 105km2 and theduration of the storm in hours. Taking all storms with SSI>3,000, affecting the British Isles and North Sea in Lamband Frydendahl’s, admittedly highly selective dataset suchstorms average about 1 per decade from 1700 to 1990, butthere is considerable temporal variability, with, for example,4 such storms in the 1790s and 3 in the 1880s.

One aspect of storminess that has only recently beenhighlighted is the occurrence of serial clustering (Mailier etal. 2006). The cumulative impact of two or three storms inrapid succession in terms of coastal erosion and sedimentmovement may exceed the additive impact of the individual

storm events and, more importantly, the impact of a seriesof low intensity storms may be equivalent to that of a singlehigh intensity storm (Ferriera 2005, 2006). Repeated sanddrift events would encourage the growth of blow-outs, forexample, before any natural or anthropogenic adjustmentscould be made.

As noted above, deducing trends in storminess, even forinstrumental records, may be difficult as data quality haschanged over the last two centuries. However someinternally consistent data sets do exist from which trendscan be gauged. The time series for the extended storminessrecord for Scandinavia from 1800 to 2002, based onpressure observations, are stationary, although considerableinter-annual variability is apparent (Bärring and von Storch2004) and this finding reinforces the picture emerging fromother data sets (Alexandersson et al. 1998; Matulla et al.2008) of unchanged storminess over the shorter period from∼1880 to present. In contrast to earlier studies, Wang et al.(2008) explore seasonal changes in Atlantic storminessfrom 1874–2007 and conclude that winter storminesspeaked in the early 1990s while summer storminess peakedin the 1880s. The 1880s were notable for the severity ofsome of the Atlantic storms and Lamb and Frydendahl(1991) highlight five storms in October 1881, March 1883,January 1884, October 1886 and December 1886, all withstorm severity indices in excess of 1,500.

Given that the final century of the Little Ice Age iscaptured within these records it appears that storminess atthe end of the Little Ice Age is comparable to that in theperiod of the late 1980s to mid-1990s. It also seems that thekey difference between the Little Ice Age and the late 20thcentury was the frequent very cold winters, rather than thestorminess per se, although the southward spread of sea icein the North Atlantic has been used to account for increasedpressure gradients and cyclone activity (Lamb 1995;Dawson et al. 2007).

If storm frequencies and intensities, although variable atmonthly, annual and decadal scales, show no long termtrends over the period of the last 100–200 years thenpatterns of sand drift need to be examined in the context ofthe other variables: human intervention and sand supply.

Human intervention to control sand drift

The importance of vegetation for stabilising sand drift hasbeen understood for centuries. At the scale of an individualtenement or landholding the impact of sand drift wasliterally overwhelming but there is a common theme in theliterature on coastal dunes that lays the blame for sand drifton anthropogenic activities including the pulling up of dunevegetation, overgrazing by cattle and the digging out ofrabbits (see Klijn 1990; Doody 1989). The most effective

Fig. 2 Recent records of Atlantic storminess (95 percentiles) based ongeostrophic winds with Gaussian smoothing from Wang et al. (2008)together with the dataset from Matulla et al. (2008)

230 M.L. Clarke, H.M. Rendell

dune grass, Ammophilia arenaria (common names: starr,bent, marram, sea rush) is relatively unpalatable tolivestock, but its leaves can be used for thatch or woveninto mats or baskets and its long roots can be used for fuel.Its common name in England in the late 16th and early 17thcenturies was ‘the English matweede’ (Gerard 1597;Parkinson 1640). In Britain and Ireland these coastal landswere often not common land, but instead were owned andmanaged, so that rather than being areas of uncontrolledrabbit populations, for example, some dune areas werestrictly managed for rearing rabbits and other game (Harrop1985; Baeyens and Martínez 2004). Manorial records inCornwall from the 15th century and Lancashire from the16th century, for instance, show that tenancies were notonly granted with the obligation of planting dune vegeta-tion, but also that fines were imposed for unauthorisedcutting or removal of such vegetation (Harrop 1985;Cornwall Record Office, Estate Correspondence, Arundellof Lanherne and Trerice 1491). The scale of the sand driftremains the key factor with individuals and individuallandowners often powerless in the face of substantialamounts of sediment. As noted above, an area in excessof a quarter of a million hectares was involved and the scaleof the problem is apparent when the legislation that wastriggered in response to sand drift is considered. Only withthe involvement of legislation and the outlay of substantialcapital and labour on the part of both governments andindividual landowners has sand drift in Western Europebeen largely curtailed.

Legal agreements and prohibitions

In Britain, the first Public Act of Parliament concerningsand drift became law in 1554. This was “An ActeTouching the Sea Sandes of Glamorganshire” and aimed“to reform the great hurte, nuisance and losses that comethand chanceth to the Queen Highness and her Subjects byreason of the sande Rising out of the sea and driven toland by storms and winds whereby much good groundlying on the sea coast in sundry places of this realm andespecially in the County of Glamorgan, bee covered withsuche sande rising out of the sea that ther comethe noprofitte of the same, to the greate losse of the QuenesHighnes and her loving subjectes and more ys lyke toensue yf spedye remedie be not therin provided” .…(1 Mary St.3 c.10.11 1554). This legislation empowered abody know as the ‘Commission of the Sewers’ to assumewhatever powers were necessary to combat the sand driftproblem. This first piece of legislation explicitly links thesand drift problem to storms driving sand inland andmakes no mention of activities such as the cutting orpulling up of dune vegetation.

Subsequent legislation appears to have been triggered bythe impacts of particular storm events and associated sanddrifting: in the Culbin sands area of Scotland in 1694 whenfarms and fields were lost (Ross 1992), and along theLancashire coast near Formby in 1739 when the settlementof Ravenmeols and the western outskirts of Formby wereinvaded by sand (De Rance 1877). The blown sandincursion at Formby in the period from 1700 to 1750 hasbeen attributed to the onshore movement of a sand bar andits subsequent deflation by wind (De Rance 1872). Formbychurch was dismantled and moved 1.5 miles inland in 1746and, by 1750, the streets, gardens and orchards on thelandward side of the old church had been covered by sand(De Rance 1877). Both the “Act for preservation ofmedows, lands and pasturages, lying adjacent to sand-hills”(1 William III c.54 1695) and the “Act for the moreeffectual preventing of the cutting of starr or bent”(15 George II c.33 1742) were designed to preserve dunevegetation by prosecuting people for cutting or pulling itup; the vegetation involved is specified as bent, juniper andbroom in the case of the 1695 Act and bent or starr grass inthe case of the 1742 one. The 1742 Act notes that “whenany violent strong west winds happen to blow, the sand iscarried away and thrown on the adjacent lands, not only tothe damage thereof but also to the great Terror and Dangerof the Inhabitants who are thereby exposed to theIndundation of the sea” (15 George II c.33 1742) thushighlighting the role of the dunes as the first line of defenceagainst coastal flooding. It is important to note that the1695 Act expressly prohibited the pulling up and removalof vegetation by anyone, including the proprietors of theland, thereby making the 1695 Act effectively unworkable,as noted in the subsequent 1742 Act. The later Actprohibited the pulling up and carrying off of dune grasseswithout the consent of the landowners, although it isinteresting to note that the Act does not extend to the“ancient prescriptive Right to cut Starr or Bent upon the seacoasts in the County of Cumberland” (15 George II c.331742). The 1742 Act also alludes to the continual effortsmade to plant dune grasses and to stabilise the sand drift:“…it has been found by Experience that the best way topreserve the said Hills from being blown away as aforesaid,is to plant them with a certain Rush or Shrub called Starr orBent, which proves an effectual Method for keeping thesame firm and solid, and which the Owners of the saidLands are at great Costs and Charges, in yearly setting andplanting for that Purpose:…” (15 George II c.33 1742).

In Denmark, King Christian III prohibited the pulling upof dune grass in 1539 (Skarregaard 1989; Kjærgaard 1994)and this prohibition, together with subsequent decrees, wasincluded in the Danish Law of 1683. Wattle fences and theplanting of lyme grass (Elymus arenaria) were used byfarmers to try to arrest the drift of sand in Jutland

Atlantic storminess and historical sand drift in Western Europe 231

(Kjærgaard 1994). In April 1779 a temporary law for thecontrol of sand drift was issued for northwest Jutland andfinally in 1792 a general decree was passed (Skarregaard1989). This decree included the provision of funds for theconscription of a large workforce and the planting of treesas well as grasses. It is estimated that between 1792 and1807 nearly three million working days were devoted tosand stabilisation (Kjærgaard 1994). Further legislation onsand drift followed in 1867, 1961 and 1992 (Skarregaard1989; Jensen and Schou 2008).

Pine forests had been planted on royal command on thecoastal dunes of western Portugal in the 13th and 14thcenturies, removing the threat of sand invasion from thetown of Marinha Grande, although the nature and extent ofthe planting remains contested (Pinto 1938). The idea ofusing trees for sand stabilisation was not taken upelsewhere in Europe until the late 18th century. In a radicalplan that was to transform the coastal dunes of Gascony andthe inland sand wastes of the Landes in southwest France,Nicolas Brémontier devised a scheme for stabilising boththe coastal dunes and the inland sand sheets (Brémontier1797). Initially the coastal dunes were stabilised by plantingAmmophilia arenaria or by the use of wicker hedges andthen by sowing a mixture of pine and broom seeds, with thesowings initially protected by brushwood (Brown 1878).The developing pine forests not only stabilised the sand butalso provided a source of income from the processing andsale of resin and turpentine for the indigenous population(Blanchard 1926). The work on this project began in 1789with the planting of the dunes of the Teste area (Brémontier1797) and the French government passed further legislationin 1801, 1810, 1817, 1857 and 1862 enforcing theafforestation work (Brown 1878). It is estimated that by1865 193,600 ha had been forested, increasing to809,100 ha by 1892 (Blanchard 1926). This area included90,000 ha of the Gascony coastal dunes (Guinaudeau1974). The success of the forestry campaign was thesubject of considerable interest internationally and led toafforestation of dunes on the part of governments, in thecase of Portugal and Denmark, and, at least initially, byindividual landowners in the case of Britain and Ireland(see Table 1). The scale of planting reflects the level ofresources committed, with the relatively small areas plantedby the landowners contrasting with the substantial areasplanted with direct or indirect financing from centralgovernments. After the Second World War, the UK ForestryCommission played the major role in afforesting coastaldunes with the plantations at Culbin and Newborough,together with those at Pembrey and Tentsmuir, accountingfor 73% of the forested dunes in Great Britain.

Although some sand drift undoubtedly resulted from theimpact of human activities in disturbing and removing dunevegetation and subsequent deflation of material by storms,

in other cases, including those cited in this paper atGwithian, Kenfig and Formby, the sand drift problemappears to have been related to a combination of sandsupply and storminess.

Sand supply, dune building and sand drift

The issue of changing sand supply to coastal beaches anddunefields has particular contemporary relevance in West-ern Europe since anthropogenically-driven changes in someriver catchments, particularly dam construction, have theeffect of reducing sediment supply via estuaries (Carter etal. 1990). The latter source of sediment is significant in thecase of the coastal dunes of Portugal (Mondego and DouroRivers), Aquitaine (Gironde River), The Netherlands (RiverRhine) and Denmark (River Elbe) as well as for the some ofthe smaller dunefields of Britain (e.g. Sefton (RiversMersey and Ribble)). The responses of beach and foreduneto changes in sediment supply can be complex (Psuty 2004)at a range of temporal and spatial scales. Positive sedimentbudgets allow the development of large foredune ridges andthe transgressive movement of sand inland, but in Portugal,for example, sediment budgets are now negative and somebeaches and foredunes are being actively eroded (Veloso-Gomes et al. 2004). Inland from the coast, sand material inexisting dunefields can also be reworked to form parabolicdunes (e.g. in Aquitaine (Clarke et al. 2002)) developedfrom blow-outs as a result of the disturbance or removal ofdune vegetation. Therefore, although sand drift is ultimatelycontrolled by positive sediment budgets at the beach-duneinterface, it can also result from reactivation and reworkingof dunes inland from the foredune (Psuty 2004).

Discussion: sand drift and dynamic dune managementin the context of future climate change

It is evident that Western Europe is experiencing at presentan unprecedented level of sand dune stability and minimalproblems with sand drift, although foredune buildingcontinues to be active in some places such as Denmark(Skarregaard 1989). The documentary and instrumentalrecords of Atlantic storms appear to show not onlyconsiderable annual to decadal scale variability but also alack of long term trends with the mid-1990s no morestormy than the 1880s to 1900s. The latest data for the 21stcentury appear to show a down-turn in storminess relativeto the 1990s (Matulla et al. 2008).

However, not everyone has viewed the suppression ofsand drift with equanimity. “Whilst tree planting has helpedto prevent sand blow affecting adjacent land and property;it has also ‘fossilised’ dune sediments. Today many dunes

232 M.L. Clarke, H.M. Rendell

are ‘over stable’ showing a reversion of species-rich form toscrub and woodland” (Doody 2001, p.130). Narratives ofloss of dunes and dune habitats permeate the recent coastaldune literature where it is estimated that there has been anet loss of 25% European coastal dunes since 1900, with∼55% of remaining dunes showing a loss of character(Heslenfeld et al. 2004). Dunes are seen as fragile in theface of contemporary human activity—urbanisation, tour-ism and changing management practices (Martínez et al.2004). Stabilisation is however viewed as being extremelycostly and as having a negative effect both on aeolianprocesses and on the ‘natural successional landscape’(Martínez et al. 2004 p.362).

Rather than stabilisation as the end goal, it has beenargued that the dune management should aim for‘naturalness’ associated with dynamic management (vander Meulen et al. 2004), working with ‘natural processes’to produce ‘natural core areas’. Doody (2001, pp.147–148) argues that “(a)cceptance that … sand movementforms part of the ‘natural’ process, with positive benefitsfor nature conservation, may require a fundamentalchange in attitude (on the part of the sand dune manager)”and concludes by noting that “In the future conservationmanagement should aim to provide larger and moredynamic dune fields where interference is minimal”. Theresults of some destabilisation experiments in the Nether-lands suggest that the scale of the reactivation area and thenature of sand supply are critical factors in determiningthe reestablishment of dynamic dune activity. In this casethe initial area devegetated was about 35 ha, arranged in acoastal strip 3 km long and between 100 and 300 m wide(Arens and Geelen 2006). The subsequent systemresponse was complex with some gradual revegetationby pioneer species and some vegetation buried by roll-over of advancing dunes. The system was howeversupply-limited (Arens and Geelen 2006) and the size ofthe reactivated area was comparatively small.

If dune management strategies support actively devege-tating coastal dunes on a larger scale then the questionarises as to the likely impacts of remobilisation in thecontext of future climate changes. Just as the criteria forestablishing storminess are complex, so are those used toassess future storminess. Indicators include storm trackdensities and intensities (Pinto et al. 2007b; Lionello et al.2008), the extremes of the probability distribution of nearsurface windspeeds (usually those exceeding the 95th or99th percentiles) (e.g. Pryor et al. 2006). The changingvulnerability of both coastal and inland areas to storms andthe associated high winds has been a major concern inNorthwest Europe since the storm events of 1953, 1987 and1990 (Dorland et al. 1999; Pinto et al. 2007a). The impactof future climate changes has been explored using bothGCMs (general circulation models) and RCMs (regionalclimate models). The results of recent studies modelling theimpacts of IPCC greenhouse gas emission scenarios(Nakicenovic and Swart 2000) on various indicators ofstorminess are summarised in Table 2. The consensus thatemerges from these studies is that, as far as the British Isles,Northern France and the rest of Northwest Europe areconcerned, winter storminess is likely to increase relative tothat experienced in the final three decades of the 20thcentury. By contrast, winter storminess is likely to decreasein the Iberian peninsula and the Mediterranean. Some of themodel simulations are however associated with high levelsof uncertainty (e.g. Pryor et al. 2006). The prospect ofincreased storm activity, coupled with sea level rise, hasimplications for sand supply to the intertidal zone and sandentrainment by strong winds, both of which could poten-tially enhance the risk of sand drift. It is in this context thatthe more dynamic management of coastal dunefields, withmanaged destabilization as an option, will need to balancethe competing requirements of visitor pressures, devegetat-ing dune systems in the ‘wrong places’ and natureconservation management techniques, devegetating them

Table 1 Timing of dune afforestation work in Western Europe following the success of the Aquitaine planting

Country dates Area planted (ha) Location Reference

Portugal 1805– 37,000 Quiaios-Mira Pinto 1938

Ireland 1838–1841 20–24 Lord Palmerston’s Estate in County Sligo Foster 1846

Scotland 1839 28 Kincorth Estate Macdonald 1954

Scotland 1840–1842 121 Moy Estate Macdonald 1954

Scotland 1922–1939 2,560 Culbin Estate (Forestry Commission) Ross 19921946–1963

England 1840 101 Holkham Estate, Norfolk Macdonald 1954

Denmark 1853– 39,000 Jutland Skarregaard 1989

Scotland 1890 1,500 Tentsmuir Ovington 1950

England 1893–1894 176 Sefton coast Lancashire, Weld-Blundell Estate Jones et al. 1993

Wales 1947– 750 Newborough, Anglesey (Forestry Commission) Banister 1974

Atlantic storminess and historical sand drift in Western Europe 233

in the ‘right places’. As in the past, the scale of humanintervention appears to be a key factor with any large scaleremoval of vegetation likely to result in renewed dunemovement and sand drift.

Conclusions

Decisions about the future management of coastal dunes inWestern Europe need to be informed by an understandingof the climatological and historical contexts in which thedunes have developed, in addition to geomorphological andecological concerns. Some of the coastal dunefields ofWestern Europe have records of management stretchingback a thousand years, with sand drift affecting an area of atleast a quarter of a million hectares. The comparative

stability of many of these dunefields is a relatively recentphenomenon, mostly dating from the 19th century, resultingfrom significant long term investment in vegetationplanting on the part of individuals, communities andgovernments. The scale of these stabilisation measuresindicates the historic seriousness of the sand drift problemand suggests that moving towards future ‘dynamic’management strategies focussed on devegetation and areturn to ‘naturalness’ may be both unwise and costly.While storminess over much of Western Europe, althoughvariable at the inter-annual and decadal scales, has beenrelatively unchanged over the past 200 years, future climatescenarios indicate that it will continue to be at least asstormy as present, or even stormier, over the next 100 yearsthus providing a challenging context for ‘dynamic’ dunemanagement strategies.

Table 2 Future storminess projections for the northeast Atlantic and northwest Europe

Indicators Modeling approach IPCCscenarios

Conclusions relative to the control period Reference

Near surface winds Ensemble of RCM simulations for1961–1990 and 2071–2100

A2 Increases of up to 1 ms−1 in some wintermonths for British Isles and Scandinavia

Rockel andWoth2007

Mean daily windspeed

99th percentile of dailymean near surfacewindspeed

Near surface windspeeds Dynamically downscaled RCM withboundary conditions derived fromECHAM4/OPYC3 AOGCM andHadAM3H

A2, B2 Output highly sensitive to differences inboundary conditions from the AOGCMs.Some evidence of increased wintertimewind energy densities over Scandinaviausing ECHAM4/OPYC3 boundaryconditions

Pryor et al.2005a, b

Mean and 90th percentilewindspeeds

Downscaled probability distributionsfor windspeed using output from 10GCMs with daily resolution

A2 Predicted changes are small (<±15%) andcomparable to current variability evidentfrom downscaling from different GCMs

Pryor et al.2006

Storm surge extremes Ensemble study using three RCMs for1961–1990 and 2071–2100

A2 Increase in severe storm surge events by 2events/year relative to 1961–1990reference period from southern North Seato Esbjerg. No significant change for eastcoast of England.

Woth et al.2006

Storm track and cycloneactivity

ECHAM5/MPI-OM1 GCM runs for1960–2000, 2060–2100

A1B,A2, B1

Intensification of winter storm tracks innortheast Atlantic and northwest Europefor A1B and A2 scenarios

Pinto et al.2007b

Cyclone tracks andintensities (95th and 99thpercentiles) Sea levelpressure fields

HadCM3 GCM Boreal winters (Oct–March) Control period 1960–1989and 2070–2099

A2, B2 Track density of extreme cyclonesincreases over Western Europe with atendency towards more intense systems.Highest amplitude change under A2scenario.

LeckebuschandUlbrich2004

Climatology of coastalstorms

ECHAM4 A-GCM at T106 horizontalresolution for 1970–1999 2060–2089

IS92a Increased windspeed over British Isles,Ireland and Scandinavia of ∼0.5ms-1

fewer but more intense storms affectingthese countries.

Lozano etal. 2004

Cyclone climatology:cyclone trajectoryidentification, sea levelpressure standarddeviation

RegCM driven by boundary conditionsfrom HadAM3H and HadCM3 (forsea surface temperatures) for 1961–1990 and 2071–2100

A2, B2 Storm track intensity increases in winterand decreases in summer in the north eastAtlantic. Cyclone frequency decreaseswhile cyclone magnitude increases

Lionello etal. 2008

Details of IPCC emissions scenarios see: Nakicenovic and Swart (2000)

234 M.L. Clarke, H.M. Rendell

Acknowledgements This work was supported by the followingresearch awards: The Leverhulme Trust (Research Fellowship RF/4/RFG/2006/0056 North Atlantic Oscillation impacts on sand drift), theBritish Academy (SG43034 Climate histories of Cornwall 1700–1950and SG090513 This restless enemy of all fertility’: storms, sandinvasion and coastal management strategies in Britain and Ireland1700–1950) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council Research(APN18211 Rome’s Maritime Façade). We would like to thankChristoph Matulla and Xiaolan Wang for kindly allowing us access totheir storminess data and the Cornwall and Lancashire County RecordOffices and the Parliamentary Archive of the House of Lords RecordOffice.

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