This volume presents the proceedings of the fourth in a series of highly successful conferences. Coastal management issues covered in the volume include planning and implementation, economic evaluation, the contribution of technology, legal and geomorphic impacts, and the increasingly important subjects of managing risk and uncertainty. Themes that are of particular interest for the future are discussed, including the UK s flood defence aims, objectives and targets, and the need or otherwise for a European directive for coastal management.

Cliff recession and coastal landsliding of soft rock cliffs present significant threats to land use and development. Investigation and management of soft rock cliffs presents state-of-the-art guidance on how eroding cliffs can best be managed, stressing the need to consider both structural and non-structural solutions to cliff recession problems. This authoritative text outlines the investigation approaches, measurement and monitoring techniques, and prediction methods available for obtaining the necessary cliff recession information to support different stages of the decision-making process. Throughout the book, it stresses that every cliff is unique because of the controlling influence of the site geology and geomorphology on the recession process. There is, therefore, no single method to tackling cliff problems; investigation and management of each cliff can only be determined on the ground, drawing upon expert judgement, experience and thorough site investigation and data analysis. Investigation and management of soft rock cliffs will provide coastal engineers, geotechnical engineers, geomorphologists, planners and students with an invaluable resource when faced with a range of issues on cliffed coastlines.