coastal change

by

The Frayed Atlantic Edge by David Gange: Rewriting Histories and Geographies of the Coast

by Cormac Walsh

In ‘The Frayed Atlantic Edge’ (William Collins, July 2019) historian and experienced sea-kayaker David Gange recounts his journey along the Atlantic coasts of Britain and Ireland, from Shetland to the Channel. In travelling by kayak, Gange immersed himself in the rhythms of the sea and coast and sought to gain new perspectives on the history and geographies of Britain and Ireland, from the perspective of the sea. Drawing on archival and literary sources, he weaves together an account of these Atlantic coasts which challenges head-on dominant narratives of the peripherality and marginality of coastal and island places. He begins with the conviction that British and Irish histories ‘are usually written inside out’, based on the false premise that the ‘land-bound geographies’ of today have existed forever (p. ix).

Frayed_Book_Image

Image source: https://frayedatlanticedge.wordpress.com.

Continue reading →

by

CFP and Registration: Spatial Strategies at the Land-Sea Interface: Rethinking Maritime Spatial Planning, Sept 2019

 

Presentation1

CALL FOR PAPERS

Spatial Strategies at the Land-Sea Interface: Rethinking Maritime Spatial Planning

11-13th September 2019, University of Hamburg, Institute for Geography

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 15th July 2019

Under the EU Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) Directive adopted in 2014, Member States are tasked with the preparation of maritime spatial plans by 2021. These plans are required to ‘take into account land-sea interactions’ and ‘should aim to integrate the maritime dimension of some coastal uses or activities and their impacts’ (EU 2014, 138). Accordingly, inshore territorial waters must be included within either marine spatial plans or land-based spatial plans where they extend beyond the coastline (EU 2014, 140, Article 2:1). Contemporary and future challenges of climate change adaptation, coastal erosion and sea-level rise underline the need for visionary and inclusive spatial strategies at the coast (O’ Riordan et al 2014, Walsh 2019).

Continue reading →

by

Workshop Announcement: Spatial Strategies at the Land-Sea Interface: Rethinking Maritime Spatial Planning

University of Hamburg: 11-13th September 2019

Under the EU Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) Directive, Member States are tasked with the preparation of maritime spatial plans by 2021. These plans are required to take account of land-sea interactions. Experience to date, however, indicates that MSP occupies a different institutional and policy space to land-based terrestrial spatial planning. At the same time as MSP is becoming established as a formal policy instrument applied in a coordinated manner across Europe, European spatial planning has reached an impasse, with a discernible shift away from ambitious spatial strategies over the last two decades. Furthermore, as policies and practices of integrated coastal zone management are displaced through a focus of attention on MSP, there is a risk of a ‘new coastal squeeze’ where the land and marine become institutionalised as distinct policy spaces. This interdisciplinary workshop aims to explore and critically reflect on the capacity for MSP and spatial planning more broadly to address the challenges posed by the sustainable governance of the land-sea interface. In particular, we will focus on the spatial dimensions of MSP and spatial planning at the coast. Key topics for discussion and reflection include the capacity of MSP to work with relational connections across space and the potential to engage with place-based knowledges and multiple ways of knowing the sea.

Continue reading →

by

Exploring Cultural Geographies of Coastal Change

by Cormac Walsh & Martin Döring

Coasts are gaining increased attention worldwide as sites of dramatic and disruptive environmental change. Coastal settlements and ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to climate change and sea level rise (Moser et al 2012). Exploitation of marine resources also contributes to coastal change, resulting in subsidence or loss of land at coastal locations, including at Louisiana and the Dutch Wadden Sea (Wernick 2014, Neslen 2017). Despite the evident interweaving of the natural and the social, the ecological, and the political at the coast, coastal geography has long been firmly positioned within the domain of physical geography with comparatively little input from human geographers. Indeed within the social sciences more generally, coastal and marine spaces have tended to be marginalised in favour of land-based narratives of societal development (e.g. Gillis 2012, Peters et al. 2018).

Image_Wadden_Sea_Walsh.jpg

© Cormac Walsh, Wadden Sea coast, Northern Germany, looking towards Nordstrandischmoor (Hallig island).

Continue reading →