Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project - The Art of the Possible
View short flyaround visualisation of Wallasea Island
ABP Marine Environmental Research Limited (ABPmer) has played a lead role in the Environmental Impact Assessment and Planning Application submission work for the RSPB’s Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project. The application for this project was submitted to Essex County Council at the end of November 2008.
The project will involve the use of earth removed during the building of the £16bn Crossrail project to reshape the landscape of Wallasea Island, near Southend-on-Sea. This landscaping will allow the creation of a new coastal nature reserve through managed realignment. Having been claimed from the sea in the 13th/14th centuries and after hundreds of years of subsequent settlement and manipulation by man, almost all of Wallasea Island now lies well below high tide level. Therefore, just letting the sea in would bring in too much water and would cause problems with navigation, fisheries and erosion elsewhere in the adjacent Crouch and Roach Estuary system. Raising the land levels therefore addresses this issue by reducing the volume of water that will be exchanged with these estuaries after realignment. It also avoids the risks associated with a future unmanaged flood event if no intervention takes place.
This would be the largest wetland scheme of its type in Europe. The application area covers 677ha within which 133ha of mudflat and 276ha of saltmarsh will be created. The creation of these new habitats will contribute to relevant Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) targets and will help to offset historical losses of mudflat and marsh.
By virtue of its scale, this project involved a very detailed scheme design process which was pursued collaboratively between RSPB, ABPmer and Faber Maunsell. During this process ABPmer’s Modelling and GIS teams played a key role in understanding how the scheme could be created, how it will function, how much imported earth was required and, crucially, what effect it will have on the designated habitats, fisheries interests and sailing/navigation activities in the Crouch and Roach. The GIS team also created a 3D visualisation of the scheme to describe how it will look and how the water will flow across and through the site. This output will be very important for the detailed public consultation which RSPB are now undertaking.
Bill Cooper, Managing Director, ABPmer said “To play a lead role in the design and assessment of this major RSPB Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project has been a very exciting opportunity for ABPmer. Designing this scheme presented new challenges and required innovative solutions; we are pleased to have brought ABPmer’s extensive managed realignment expertise to this project. This has been a major team effort and we are pleased to have developed a scheme that will be a national ‘Flagship’ project and one that will have such a range of flood protection, environmental, economic, recreational and educational benefits”
Jeff Kew RSPB’s Operations Manager (Projects) said “This is a very ambitious and technically challenging project; we have been pleased to have worked closely with ABPmer’s team of experts on this project. This has helped us develop the optimum design that will transform Wallasea Island in the coming years”.
Useful websites
Information on the Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project can be found at: -
http://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/w/wallaseaisland/index.asp
Other Press Information on the Crossrail and Wallasea Island Wild Coast Link: -
BBC - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7741121.stm
Information on previous coastal habitat creation schemes in the UK and Northern Europe can be found at: -
http://www.abpmer.net/omreg/
NOTES:
Essex County Council is expected to reach a decision in the spring. The work on Crossrail, which will connect Maidenhead in Berkshire to Shenfield in Essex via Heathrow and central London, will begin from 2010. The boring of tunnels for the rail project will begin in 2011 and the work on the island habitat is expected to take up to 10 years.
Enquiries:
Colin Scott, ABPmer
Tel: 02380 711840
