Soft engineering works in harmony with the natural environment and is effective in protecting the coast.
To what extent do you agree with this view?

I agree with this view to a great extent. Soft engineering methods are natural ways of dealing with erosion, however, every method comes with disadvantages.

One way in which soft engineering working well with the natural environment and is also effective, is beach nourishment. This is where materials such as sand and shingle are moved from the bed out at sea or further down the coast and placed at the location of the eroding beach, this therefore creates a wider beach. Wider beaches absorb the energy of the waves before they can create damage to the coast, as they reduce the erosion of the cliff more than tin beaches. The main disadvantage of this method is that taking sediment from one area and relocating it to another often only moves the problem as the area which sediment has been removed now has a thinner beach, creating more erosion. So despite the fact that it is working well and in harmony with the natural environment and is effective in area in which you are trying to protect, it may cause problems and worsen another area.
One location in which beach nourishment has been proven successful is that of Seaford Head, it was completed in 1987 and cost the local council £9million. There were four main parts to this: Firstly it involved scraping back the existing beach to reveal the solid underlying chalk; then putting on a foundation of small rocks; placing 50,000 tonnes of granite blocks, up to 15 tonnes each, in front of the old sea wall; adding then a further 3 million tonnes of shingle to the height of the old sea wall and promenade, this shingle was dredged from the seabed 15km offshore. This solution has proved very successful at Seaford but there have been serious implications for the unprotected cliffs of Seaford Head, to the immediate east of the groyne. Here, beach levels have fallen rapidly and, as a result, the rate of erosion of the unprotected chalk cliffs is clearly increasing.

Moreover, another method of soft engineering with works in sync with the natural environment is beach stabilisation. The goal of beach stabilisation is the same as beach nourishment’s goal, to widen the beach and dissipate as much wave energy as possible before it reaches the cliffs. Beach stabilisation can be done by reducing the slope angle and planting vegetation, or by sticking stakes and old tree trunks in the beach to stabilise the sand. The only problem with this method is that it is often considered ‘ugly’ and therefore is often unpopular with the local people as many people say it ruins the scenery. However, beach stabilisation is a efficient way of protecting the coast and is also very cheap, unlike many hard engineering schemes, for example sea walls or tidal barriers.

Furthermore, one final method of soft engineering is managed retreat, or coastal realignment. This involves breaching an existing defence and allowing the sea to flood the land behind. over time, vegetation will colonise the land and it’ll become marshland.The advantages are that it encourages the development of beaches(a natural defence) and salt marshes (important for the environment) and cost is low.

To conclude, there are many reasons why soft engineering is not the way forward in protecting the coastline, such as constant management, as the case with beach nourishment, or the look of the coastal defence, the case with beach stabilisation. However, overall soft engineering methods are very effective at protecting the coast and the cliffs, mostly work very well with the natural environment in harmony, but the main factor why is due to the price of soft engineering schemes to that of hard engineering methods which tend to be substantially more expensive.