Newly released aerial photos show British homes lost after decades of coastal erosion at sea

Striking new evidence shows the extent of coastal erosion in some of the UK’s most popular sea areas, with historical and recent aerial photographs revealing the damage to homes and communities.

The images – published by the historic England department of the government as part of the launch for its Aerial Photography Explorer – date back to the 1920s in similar cases.

The online map allows users, for the first time, to search and discover photos of England from above in the last 100 years. As a result, they can be used to track the effects of climate change on Britain’s urban, rural and coastal landscapes.

It comes after a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned earlier this month that Britain “is very much not adapted to climate change and is not ready”.

IPCC officials concluded that the global impact of the climate crisis was more severe than predicted, and there is only a slim chance of securing “a viable future for all”.

They also said that some coastal communities in the UK would have to move to the country and that the number of people at risk for annual coastal floods in the UK would increase from 3.2 million to more than 5 million in a worst case scenario .

The online catalog created by Historic England seems to confirm these claims, with images from areas such as Norfolk and Yorkshire showing already advanced effects that coastal erosion has on those living or possessing at sea.

In Happisburgh, Norfolk, the voyage of the coastline was well followed from 1951 to 2021. It can be seen in the pictures below.

It can be seen in 2021 picture how many houses risk being lost to the ongoing erosion, and when compared to the 2009 photo – it is clear how fast the landscape is changing.

Houses particularly along the north of the Norfolk coast are prone to coastal erosion after a 2013 storm road caused extensive damage to the coast. Happisburgh sits along the east.

The pictures tell the same story in Withersea, Yorkshire, where pictures from 1925 and 2014 show how far back the sea pushed, leaving an entire sea community in danger.

Last month it was announced that multi-million-pound work to protect more than a thousand homes on the Norfolk coast was planned to begin later this year.

Protective measures have been announced for two stretches of coast, in Cromer and Mundesley, with plans said to include the installation of steel slab walls and concrete foundations, as well as rock protection and timber construction protection, according to the local newspaper. East Daily Press.

In 2018, the government unveiled the UK’s second national adaptation program, which it claims will be delivered by 2023 and has since said it would “tackle £ 5.2 billion to tackle floods and coastal erosion in the UK”.

Following the publication of the latest IPCC report, Mike Morecroft, of the Government Agency Natural England, emphasized the importance of the coast to a country such as the United Kingdom.

“As an island nation, what’s happening on the coast is a particular issue,” said Mr. Morecroft, one of the study’s 234 lead authors.

He also suggested restoring nature on the coasts, as the example of the Steart salt marches at Somerset could offer “better protection than hard defenses”, as sought by the government.