Impacts of the December 2013 storm surge on the North Norfolk Coast

2013年12月的北海风暴造成了“英国60年来最大的风暴潮”(英国环境局)。从12月5日到7日，北诺福克海岸部分地区的潮汐达到了比1953年毁灭性洪水更高的水平。这条海岸线是自然和半自然栖息地和农田的马赛克。这些沿海栖息地具有重要的社会和经济意义，支持大量的野生动物种群，保护海岸线免受侵蚀，并被广泛用于娱乐。全球已经认识到气候变化对这些栖息地的威胁，了解形成这些栖息地的过程是维持它们为野生动物和社会提供服务的主要优先事项。2013年对防洪设施的破坏远低于1953年，避免了因洪水造成的生命损失；但海岸线仍发生了广泛的变化，海堤遭到破坏，名义上被指定为“防洪线”的地区仍被洪水淹没。本项目建议的工作将评估增兵的短期影响，并为评估其长期影响提供基础。这项工作还将为一种方法提供概念证明，我们相信这种方法将能够以成本效益的方式绘制出这样的极端事件的影响图。这是一个“一生只有一次”的机会，可以收集数据并提高我们对严重突发自然事件的影响以及如何看待和应对这些事件的理解。由于这些事件很罕见，我们对2013年12月风暴潮等严重事件的影响的了解很差，因此，将此类事件纳入我们对沿海生境未来变化的调查和制定适当的应对策略是至关重要的。目前尚不清楚风暴潮已经并将对北诺福克海岸栖息地及其提供的重要服务产生什么影响。该项目将通过调查洪水和盐碱化对植被、土壤生物、碳和氮循环以及社会反应的影响来解决这一知识差距。这将使人们能够评估洪水的影响。建议在可行的情况下尽快进行抽样，并在未来的连续时间点进行抽样。通过收集时间序列数据，将有可能评估沿海地区对洪水和咸水入侵的恢复能力。拟议的研究将考虑不同影响梯度的生境和土壤类型的对比，并将深入了解海岸的特殊脆弱性。研究将在北诺福克海岸布兰卡斯特和索尔豪斯之间的地点进行，地点为项目组熟知的地点，那里已经有监测和历史基线数据。这条海岸线提供了各种各样的栖息地类型和各种不同的土壤类型。为了能够适当地管理和保护我们重要的沿海栖息地，我们必须调查严重事件的后果，如2013年12月的风暴潮。将科学知识转化为现实世界的决策是一个挑战。因此，该项目还将与北诺福克的当地社区和沿海管理人员接触，并与调查诺福克和萨福克东海岸城市和农村地区同一事件引发的洪灾和加速侵蚀的社会和政策对策的平行工作相联系。我们需要这样一种方法来改进我们的研究成果的功能性和适用性，以管理我们的自然环境，以应对严重的突发事件和长期的适应需求。

The 2013 December North Sea storm caused "the biggest UK storm surge for 60 years" (UK Environment Agency). From the 5th to 7th of December, tides along parts of the North Norfolk coast reached higher levels than the devastating floods of 1953. This coastline is a mosaic of natural and semi-natural habitats and farmland. These coastal habitats are socially and economically important, supporting significant wildlife populations, protecting the coastline against erosion and widely used for recreation. The threat from climate change to these habitats has been globally recognised and understanding the processes that shape these habitats is a major priority for maintaining the services they provide to wildlife and society. Damage to flood defences was much lower in 2013 than in 1953, and loss of life due to flooding was avoided; but there was still extensive change to the coastline, damage to seawalls, and flooding of areas that are nominally designated as "hold the line". The work proposed in this project will assess the short term effects of the surge, and provide the basis for assessing its longer term impacts. The work will also provide proof of concept for an approach which we believe will enable the cost effective mapping of the impacts of extreme events like this. This represents a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity to collect data and improve our understanding of the impacts of severe episodic natural events and how these are perceived and responded to.Due to their rarity, our understanding of the impacts of severe events such as the December 2013 storm surge is poor, so it is essential that such events are included in our investigation of future changes to coastal habitats and in the development of appropriate response strategies. It is currently unclear what effects the storm surge has had and will have on North Norfolk coastal habitats and the vital services they provide. This project will address this gap in knowledge by investigating flooding and salinization impacts upon: vegetation, soil organisms, carbon and nitrogen cycles as well as the responses of society. This will allow an assessment of impacts of the flood to be made. Sampling is proposed as soon as is practicably possible and at successive time points into the future. By collecting time series data it will be possible to assess resilience of the coastal zone to flooding and salt water ingress. The proposed research will consider contrasting habitats and soil types across a gradient of impact and will provide insight into particular vulnerabilities of the coast.The research will be undertaken on the North Norfolk coast between Brancaster and Salthouse, at sites well known to the project team and where monitoring and historical baseline data already exist. This coastline provides a diverse range of habitat types and a variety of contrasting soil types.To be able to properly manage and protect our important coastal habitats, it is essential that we investigate the consequences of severe episodic events such as the December 2013 storm surge. There is a challenge in translating scientific knowledge into real-world decision-making. This project will also, therefore, engage with local communities and coastal managers in North Norfolk, as well as link to parallel work investigating social and policy responses to flooding and accelerated erosion associated with the same episodic event in urban and rural areas on the East coast of Norfolk and Suffolk. Such an approach is required to improve the functionality and applicability of our research findings for managing our natural environment, both in response to severe episodic events and in response to long term adaptation needs.