Concrete tide threatens Irish coastline
A report from the EU’s European Environment Agency warns that 85% of Europe’s coasts are at risk as over-development threatens its nature and environment.
In Ireland, most of the huge increase is in the Dublin, Wicklow and Louth regions where much of the country’s population increase over the past few years has been registered.
Ireland has had one of the largest population increases along its coast of any EU country, partly due to the fastest growing population in the EU and the fact that the capital city is on the sea. Sligo and Donegal showed the smallest increase.
Housing accounts for three-quarters of the development as the country’s coastal cities and towns have expanded rapidly while the holiday home boom resulted in development along the south and west coast especially.
The report estimates 5% of the newly developed areas are dump sites for waste while 15% is for industrial and commercial development and 5% for infrastructure and transport.
Population numbers living within 10km of the sea are increasing at a far greater rate than in midland areas and more than a third live within 50km of the coast.
The report covers the ten years up to 2000 but warns that development has continued unabated since then and estimates it has increased by an average of 12% across Europe in the four years to 2004.
The Copenhagen-based Environment Agency has warned the development of the coast must be managed more carefully. Together with over-fishing, pollution, sea level rise and coastal erosion, it is threatening wetlands and nature reserves and shifting the delicate balance of ecosystems.
“The coast is increasingly becoming a fragile, vulnerable area whose environment suffers continuous degradation. In this context, approximately 85% of Europe’s coasts have been identified as a risk area,” the report says.
The acceleration in the use of coastal space, mostly driven by the recreation and tourism industries, has been helped by national and EU funding and plans to regenerate coastal areas that tend to be much poorer than inland urban regions, the report says. As a result money has been pumped into tourism especially.
EEA director Professor Jacqueling McGlade said Europe’s coastlines are the richest ecosystems in terms of the number and variety of plants and animals. They also act as economic gateways to Europe and are part of the fabric of many societies.
“However, to protect our coastal areas we need to value them not as playgrounds or transport lanes with unlimited building, living, recreational and shipping potential but as fragile systems that underpin landscapes and amenities at the core of many communities,” Professor McGlade said.
The report welcomes the European Commission’s plan for integrated coastal zone management.
