Coastal engineers, waste management and pollution researchers at the University of Southampton and Queen Mary University of London have highlighted the increasing environmental risks associated with coastal landfill sites in the face of climate change.

Rising sea levels may flood the landfills, flushing pollutants into the environment, whilst erosion could release waste onto beaches to be washed into the sea. There are around 2000 historic landfills in England and Wales located in flood plains or in areas affected by coastal erosion.

As well as being expensive, protection of coastal landfills can be at odds with shoreline management plans may which seek to allow natural processes to occur, or undertake managed realignment of the coastline wherever possible.

The University of Southampton was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to study three sites in the South of England all of which present different challenges to coastal management teams. Spittles Lane landfill in Lyme Regis is on an eroding cliff top which has undercut the landfill and resulted in waste being released onto the beach and into the sea. Wicor Cams landfill in Fareham is a low-lying site which has a mixture of ad hoc sea defences, and Pennington Marshes landfill in Lymington is limiting options to realign the coastline.

The press release from Southampton University can be found here, with a report in the Guardian here and the journal paper can be read in Frontiers in Marine Science here.