Managed realignment - lessons from Wallasea, UK

Managed realignment often involves the construction of new sea walls at a location behind existing sea walls to create parcels of land that can be flooded to create new inter-tidal environments. It is employed in the UK to improve flood risk management within the context of flood risk management strategies, but so far most emphasis has focused upon creation of new wildlife habitat because this has been where the opportunities and funding have been found. Initial projects were relatively small in scale, but recent projects have been much larger. Scaling up the size of realignments introduces a variety of additional engineering and social challenges and the realignment of Wallasea Island in 2006 is one of the largest. There were a variety of issues encountered during the development of the Wallasea Island realignment that make it a good platform for exploring the issues and some of the solutions that have been found to date. This account describes the project and some of the measures taken to give it as high a level of social acceptability as possible. Such measures include design features for fish nurseries, provision of public access and careful liaison with affected communities.