Living Well with Dunes

This postcard explores a nature-based solution to coastal defence – a highly controversial issue for locals and planners in the region where hard engineering solutions have frequently been deployed as a matter of common practice. The centre of the piece is an online workshop discussion with researchers from Sounding Coastal Change, collaborators with expertise in coastal management from Norfolk Coast Partnership and Norfolk County Council and a sound artist. Sand dunes are living entities that continually change – sometimes quickly over weeks and months, and sometimes slowly and imperceptibly over decades and centuries. It is this very flexibility that enables dune structures to absorb the sea’s power, providing an organic coastal defence from flooding. The work evokes the vitality of the natural sand dune systems, as well as voicing the key species that dwell there: the marram grass, the natterjack toads and the skylarks. These constituents are fundamental to the dune’s health and to the region’s flourishing biodiversity.

George Revill