Thin end of the salt-wedge- Flood Risk and Shoreline Management Plans

Salt-wedge: "Seawater intrusion in an estuary as a wedge-shaped bottom layer which hardly mixes with the overlying fresh water layer." Now we don't have much of a salt-wedge in the Medway, thanks to the strength of the tidal current, but in a hundred years, who knows?

In a hundred years, or in 2100 to be precise, things are going to be very different. And not for the better. That's official.

This Environment Agency plan has been out for several years now- previous edition was 2009, when I was living down in Rye and had my eye off the ball to such things. Today's update (coming in at 230 pages, but easily searchable c/o the Ctrl+F function ;-) ) has been publicised heavily for the amount of money to be spent down sarf compared to the rest of the country. Even more locally, it has one clear warning. The Medway WILL suffer for the protection of the capital. Forget all the international protection levels. It will suffer. Some mitigation might help wildlife elsewhere within the Greater Thames, but the next generations will lose our spectacle we have now.

Am I in uproar? Not really.

Seen it coming. The report is only saying what we've known for years. The cynic in me has joked with other birders for a long time about why efforts to protect our local habitats and existing reserves have been so poor here- because those in the know, knew all this. Global warming and tidal rise will do for this estuary as we know it. For the insignificant time I have left, I'll just keep on watching and recording. I've most probably less than a score of good years in me, I might just see out the good times. What the custodians of our marshes do in that same timescale will be interesting to observe as well.

Of course, there is a existing plan for Shoreline Management on the Medway, last amended in 2010. Not so glossy. There is a lot more detail of potential knock ons for the environment well worth any birder perusing but, for all of us along the southern shore, the summary:

This all plays second fiddle to what happens on the Thames of course. Interesting to note the final strategy policy report for the Medway is supposedly being finalised this month, then to signed off in the spring when, presumably, our own glossier amended report made available just after that. I'm already looking forward to that summary. In the meantime, here's the existing report's land at risk on the Medway. Will a lot of that will be coloured watery blue in years to come? We live in interesting times.