Fiona highlights dangers of coastal erosion
The results of local weather change are being felt up and down the Maritimes’ coastlines, particularly on Prince Edward Island, the place Hurricane Fiona revealed simply how weak the island is to coastal erosion.
Nonetheless, some are working to gradual it down.
On Tuesday, crews close to Stratford, P.E.I., had been working to restore, reinforce, and winterize the Island’s dwelling shoreline. It’s what’s known as gentle armour — serving to to gradual erosion on the water’s edge.
“We determined that this was one of many excellent websites to place in an illustration venture, proof of idea, to actually begin getting individuals occupied with dwelling shorelines,” mentioned Charlotte Giant, the venture coordinator at PEI Watershed Alliance. “And in addition seeing how they work.”
A dwelling shoreline includes utilizing gentle supplies — like hay, logs, and branches — to enhance coastal resiliency for the primary three years, whereas native crops planted within the space take maintain alongside the shore and reinforce it.
“These pure processes that you just’re bringing again to your shoreline can deal with issues like wave power, sea degree rise extra successfully over the long run,” mentioned Giant. “Nature is aware of what it’s doing and we’re doing our greatest to carry these processes again, and total you’ll have a more healthy coast.”
The positioning close to Stratford is considered one of three the place the proof of idea tasks had been put in in the summertime of 2021. One other website sits on the Charlottetown facet of the Hillsborough River.
It’s a substitute for the extra widespread exhausting armour — issues like rock and cement partitions — which you’ll be able to see throughout the island, together with on the Charlottetown waterfront.
P.E.I. is especially weak to erosion, a lot so the College of Prince Edward Island’s Local weather Analysis Lab actively displays coastal erosion utilizing drone pictures at 75 websites throughout the island.
“We will then look and see how a lot the shoreline is both receding or rising,” mentioned Adam Fenech, the director of the UPEI Local weather Analysis Lab. “Sadly, in most locations that we glance, it’s disappearing and disappearing at charges that at the moment are fairly important.”
They’ve been taking measurements since 2014.
The island is a huge sandbar, made up of sand and sandstone, which means there isn’t any indigenous exhausting stone, so there’s little to maintain the shoreline from sporting away.
“Coastal erosion is a pure course of, and has been occurring for 1000’s of years,” mentioned Fenech. “The easiest way to guard your self in opposition to it’s not to construct so darn near the shore, and that’s been my fundamental message time and time once more.”
Everybody CTV spoke to Tuesday burdened that no coastal armouring can cease erosion. It may possibly maintain it again for a time, however in the long run, the ocean all the time wins.
