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The Solway Firth, situated on the border between Scotland and England on the West coast of Great Britain

Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Multi Media Mapping

The study area selected for this research project is the Solway Firth, a large and relatively unspoilt estuary situated on the border between England and Scotland on the West coast of Great Britain. The Solway presents a relatively unique coastal management example, because although like many other coastal stretches and indeed firths, it is managed by a variety of governmental and non-governmental agencies and organisations, its management is also governed by two governments (Scotland and England) who each have different legislation for dealing with the coastal environment. This presents an ideal case study for how an integrated coastal zone management decision support system (DSS) can network various management bodies where different legislation exists. It also presents many theoretical and practical challenges for data collection and assimilation where data is collected by different agencies and may be stored in different formats, at different scales and stored on different media. Moreover, the Scottish and English coasts of the Solway present various different coastal environments, both human and physical that are useful in testing the applicability of the DSS to different management environments and situations.

For this study, the whole of the Solway Firth can be taken as a whole. Indeed, it is important to do this so that the any case study areas can be studied in the context of the larger management area. However, in terms of collecting data, the whole of the Firth is too large an area to cover unless the data already exists. In this respect, two smaller areas were chosen as case study areas. These are Kippford on the Scottish coast and the area around Silloth on the English coast. The two areas were chosen as being representative of the different environments found on the two coastlines of the Solway, both also presenting different management scenarios and opportunities.
 

The area used for the case study runs from Grune Point (a sand and shingle spit) to the north of Silloth to the West Silloth area, just south of Silloth docks. The coast here is in complete contrast to that of Kippford, being much more open to the Solway and having a different geology which is much softer. Grune Point is a sedimentary spit feature approximately one mile long (form Skinburness to its furthest extent). Its western side is exposed to the Solway and prevailing westerly winds. The west side is more sheltered and itself Skinburness saltmarsh. Around the head of Grune Point are a number of 'scar' grounds that are important for…… Since the mid-1990s the spit has suffered some relatively severe erosion near skinburness with the coastline receding by ….. metres. Rock armour defence works have been put in place in an attempt to alleviate this situation. Further south and between Silloth docks and Skinburness, the coast is protected by a large concrete sea wall, wooden groynes and more rock armour. Much of this wall dates from the 1970s, the 1980s with repair work being carried out in 1999/2000. The sea wall protects the coast from erosion and also acts as defence against flooding. This area of coastline has been highly modified by human intervention. South beyond Silloth docks the beach widens into a sandy shingle and mud area. There is a large sand dune complex as well as golf links.