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The Geography Department |
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Walberswick beach and Dingle Marsh breach 7 February 2007 |
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Some maintenance work being done to the banks of the Dunwich River as it flows north to join the River Blyth at Walberswick. The town features behind are in Southwold, including the distinctive white lighthouse, symbolic of the Sole Bay Brewery - Adnams! |
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Towards the village over the 'Town Salts' from the car park. note: flood defences of a bank and sheet piling. |
Towards Southwold over 'The Flats' and its walkway to the car park. |
The Environment Agency are fencing off some of the sand dunes to aid its flooding defence brief, although a popular seaside spot like this will pressure conservation. |
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A well-developed community of beach huts in an area of well-trampled sand |
A well-defined pathway back to the village, over the Dunwich River and flood banks. |
The beach ridge has clearly been bulldozed up recently. |
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Three views of the 'Town Flats'/'Corporation Marshes' backwater areas. the gravel has been washed over the beach ridge at some stage, but not recently at this particular point. |
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The southerly end of the walk shows the bulldozed beach ridge narrowing significantly, and displays the large area of washed-over gravels invading the marshes. |
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The fragility of the ridge is seen here by looking southwards towards Dunwich; the sea already having produced a fretted seaward slope. The bulldozing was a final 'one-off' repair in response to the concerns of Walberswick people; I feel it will last no longer than the spring high tides. There is no weight of shingle present, neither is the height of the beach adequate to prevent overtopping. |
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Some fascinating residual fluvial features, in miniature, mark the back slope of the beach ridge. On the right is a channel full of riffles and deeps, minus the water, of course! |
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More views of areas where the inundation of the sea has pushed the shingle back into the marsh; but the ridge is much lower than it used to be in such areas as the displaced material was not bulldozed back - only the remaining foreshore material was pushed up to make a new ridge - and there simply wasn't enough of it! |
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Channels that were active before the sealing of the breaches by the Environment Agency, can be seen in part behind the beach. |
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The extent of inundation of the marshes can be seen by the brash line on the shingle and, in the centre, both the separation of fine sand/silt and the grave/shingle and, on the skyline, the southern end of the bulldozed high ridge. |
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A flow of sand and shingle has reached a drainage channel and blocked it; a new surface now covers this area of the 'Corporation Marshes'. |
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