LJMU part of £1.8m NERC coastal protection research

Climate change is threatening to wreck efforts to contain man-made pollution around Britain’s coast.

Around 1,200 coastal landfills – both industrial and municipal – are rapidly being exposed by storms and erosion caused by rising seas and erratic weather.

Now a team of top UK scientists, including Liverpool John Moores, has been awarded £1.85 million to produce an action plan to counter to problem.

The prestigious funding comes from the Natural Environment Research Council, which supports research into the ‘major challenges of the 21^st century’.

Fishing, tourism and wildlife

Dr Patrick Byrne, an expert in metal pollution from the School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, said: “Unfortunately there are hundreds of historic pollution sites which are a threat to marine environments and we need to better understand the damage they will create both to human activity like tourism and fishing, and to the wildlife.

Polluted sites include areas of Merseyside, the north Devon coast and Walney Island, off Barrow, the site of a former iron and steel works and a municipal waste site that is badly eroding.

Historically a great deal of mining and metal smelting activities have been coastal, so a variety of toxic metals are the main problem. In terms of municipal wastes, the studies will focus on organic wastes (PAHs) such as asbestos and plastics.

The team, which includes geomorphologists, geochemists, hydrologists, ecologists and environmental policy specialists is led by Newcastle University and unites researchers from Hull, Exeter, Plymouth, Glasgow, Leeds and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.

National partners

They will work alongside national and local government, including  DEFRA, the Environment Agency, and Natural Resources Wales, and environmental and wildlife organisations such as National Trusts; Marine Conservation Society; Natural England; Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB.

LJMU is leading the investigations in the north west and north Wales.

Added Dr Byrne: “The problem is magnified because of climate change, which is increasing rates of coastal erosion in some areas, intensifying fluvial and coastal flooding, and leading to more pronounced cycles of wetting and drying.

“This will be the most comprehensive study ever undertaken of legacy wastes in the coastal and transitional waters around the UK.”