Darius Bartlett

Coast Erosion in Northeast Ireland:-Part II Cliffs and Shore Platforms

This paper summarises the erosion of the ‘hard’ coast (cliffs and shore platforms) of northeast Ireland, between Portstewart, Co. Londonderry and Larne. Co. Antrim. Although there is abundant evidence of localised coastal changes, it is not possible to define rates of erosion except on the glacial material cliffs at Portballintrae. where a mean rate of 0.25m/year (1949- 1987) was recorded, although this mean rate appears anomalous in a longer term perspective. Elsewhere, marine erosion is confined to occasional block falls or block dislodgement. Undercutting of cliffs also helps to trigger a variety of sub-aerial slope failures ranging from small superficial slides to large landslips. Patterns of marine erosion are linked to lithological variations in the rock, with the most resistant material (Cretaceous chalk) showing no discernible changes over the last 100 years. The construction of the Antrim Coast Road (A2) in the 1800s has led to the disruption of littoral sediment supplies along stretches of the e...

Coastal Erosion in Northeast Ireland—Part I: Sand beaches, dunes and river mouths

Shoreline erosion is an environmental issue in main parts of Ireland. This paper reports on a detailed study of shoreline change at sixteen beach sites from the mouth of Lough Foyle (Magilligan) in Co. Londonderry to Larne in Co. Antrim, a distance of 135km. Apart from a short stretch of coast (c. 4km) around the mouth of the River Bann. the entire coast is receding, although the rates of change and the reasons for such changes vary considerably. The most rapid erosion (up to 3.5 in/year) is occurring on the northwest coast of Magilligan. probably as part of a lone-term natural adjustment of the shoreline to secular climate and sea-level changes. Elsewhere, average erosion rates are much longer, often less than 0.25 in year, although this rate approaches I m year on those beaches (Cushendall and Cushendun) that are. or have been, used for sand and gravel extraction. In many places shoreline changes have resulted from human activities, including the building of seawalls, jetties and piers. At Portrush and ...

A dynamically segmented linear data model of the coast

This article discusses the rationale behind choosing a dynamically segmented linear data model as the basis for a coastal zone geographic information system (GIS). The salient features and conceptu...

Quality Control in Coastal GIS

The field of coastal geographical information systems (GIS) has matured, in parallel with more general advances in spatial information technologies, to a stage where there is now a growing urgency to examine the issue of quality regarding developed applications. Although quality in GIS has been recognised as an important issue for almost two decades (Chrisman, 1982; Blakemore, 1983; Burrough, 1986; Aronoff, 1989; Goodchild and Gopal, 1989; Guptill and Morrison, 1995), it has nonetheless been claimed by von Meyer et al. (1999) that, “until recently, people involved in developing and using digital data paid little attention to the problems caused by error, inaccuracy, and precision in spatial data sets”; they cite as evidence a number of influential standard text books on GIS, (Tomlin, 1990; Star and Estes, 1990; Clarke, 1990) in which, they suggest, the authors “barely mention the issue” of quality.