Increasing the margins of mudflat, reedbed and saltmarsh along the edges of hardened, urbanised estuaries is what the Estuary Edges project is about. In the case study estuary, the Tidal Thames, South East UK, there has been a loss of 10,000 hectares of saltmarsh since 1860 (Environment Agency, 2016). Dr Richard Charman from the Environment Agency will explain why this softening is so vital, the variety of methods employed and what is available on the new ‘how to guide’ web site aimed at developers which launched in summer 2019.

Our speaker

Dr Richard Charman is a geomorphologist in the Fisheries, Biodiversity and Geomorphology team at the Environment Agency. He improves the morphological states of our rivers, coasts and estuaries through the EA’s regulatory work and with partners. Prior to this he worked in Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management also at the Environment Agency which followed the completion of his PhD in estuarine geomorphology. He has also studied chalk and clay shore platform erosion dynamics.