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Chapter 5 – Coastal Modification: How Hard Armouring
Impacts Shorelines

For millennia, hard armouring structures have been used in coastal communities across
the globe . The first seawalls date back to 448 A .D . when the Roman Emperor Constantine I
ordered their construction as barricades to protect the city from invasion . In more recent
history however, seawalls have been used as the go-to solution to shield coastal homes
from wave energy and storm surges . The widespread installation of seawalls has allowed
us to build right up to the shorelines . However, as our understanding of natural shoreline
function improves, there is a growing acceptance that such structural solutions may cause

more problems than they solve . Photos by: Kyla Sheehan & Maria Catanzaro

Coastal Modification

In many urban locations around the world, more
than 50% of the shoreline has been “hardened” by
coastal armouring structures (Gittman et al . 2016) .
The construction of shoreline armour has led to
a false sense of security and an associated rise in
populations in flood prone areas (Rumson et al .
2017) . With approximately 60% of the global
population living within 60km of the coast (UN
Atlas of the Oceans 2016) and an estimated 72%
of British Columbians living in coastal communities
(Bodtker and Philibert 2018), we have a lot to lose
when it comes to sea level rise and coastal storms .

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