Beach landowner Shoreham Port is a commercial port that provides a full range of services aligned to commercial shipping, fishing and leisure marinas, alongside an extensive property and storage portfolio. The organisation operates as a trust, with a purpose to shape and maintain the Port for the benefit of all stakeholders. With over a decade of EcoPort status, Shoreham Port is making significant strides in its environmental performance, focusing on a range of decarbonisation, green energy and biodiversity projects. Coupled with this is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and engagement activities, including their popular annual Sustainability Week.
Funded through the Shoreham Harbour Regeneration Board, Southwick Reef is a multi-organisation collaboration designed to transform the marine environment within the area. The project will see the installation of state-of-the-art structures, including living sea wall tiles, intertidal cubes, and vertical micro pools, all engineered to withstand tidal forces whilst creating richer habitats than the traditional harbour wall. With Shoreham Port at the helm, project collaborators include two councils, Sussex Bay, and Sussex Dolphin Project.
The structures are expected to boost the number and diversity of species in the area, enhancing ecosystem resilience. Seaweeds and algae have been seen to proliferate upon these types of structure, providing shelter and food for small invertebrates, which in turn become food sources for larger organisms. Accessible to the public at low tide, the new structures offer visitors a unique opportunity to engage with marine species and observe the benefits of ecological restoration firsthand. It will also provide a more aesthetically pleasing environment for members of the public to engage with their local environment.
Enhancement of the complexity of marine urban structures is a relatively new idea designed for ecological co-benefits. Despite the positive effects and the wider benefits that have been described at seascape and landscape scales, these interventions are still very rare and there is limited data regarding their impact on the local community and coastal ecosystems.
To ensure the project's success, a preliminary baseline biodiversity survey of the existing harbour wall and surrounding foreshore has been conducted to inform design decisions and provide a benchmark for tracking the project's regenerative efforts. Working in collaboration with Shoreham Port, the area will be monitored over the life of the project to assess the new different species of flora and fauna taking up residence in the newly created spaces, at low and mid-tide elevations.
The research will also focus on the increase biodiversity under the water – as well as improvement of water quality in the area, due to the new filter feeding inhabitants.
Additionally, there is a community engagement component of this PhD comprising of four strands of co-production outreach strategies.
- Mapping the different user communities who visit or interact with this area of the sea wall (surfers; swimmers; beach foragers; tourists; dog walkers; anglers; wildlife photographers; paddle boarders etc). As well as documenting the type of engagements with the space, we will collate data regarding frequency and types of engagement, including factors such as seasonality, weather, perceptions of safety and security, access and linked infrastructure (such as parking, toilets, disability access). Different strategies to connect with the communities will be developed.
- The second strand is for the PhD student to connect with local schools and further education colleges to offer short field visits to the site at low tide. The aims of the field visit are to work with students of a variety of ages and with different knowledges to engage them in understanding about littoral/intertidal zones and to consider ways that humans influence these spaces.
- The third strand involves exploring extending living sea wall technologies at scale. Given the extent of grey sea wall infrastructure in the Southwick/Shoreham area and across the Sussex Bay region there is a pressing need to understand the potentiality and appetite for embedding these technologies across lengthier sections of sea wall, marina and harbour, ideally in co-connected networks across a range of inter-tidal environments.
- The final strand is to connect with global practitioners engaged with biodiversity enhancement technologies and processes. The PhD student will document and collate how other global spaces use these technologies to determine best practice and barriers to entry for low-resource global communities that would like to implement these schemes. The level of engagement and output will be determined by ascertaining what networks already exist and seeking to engage, extend or amplify these connectivities.
These four strands also provide ample opportunity for the PhD student to present findings in a range of media through blog postings, podcasts, accessible journalism and writing the research outcomes in academic journals and practitioner magazines and newsletters.
We therefore seek a PhD candidate to lead and shape this research project under the guidance and direction of the pre-established supervisory/advisory team. The candidate will undertake a blend of desk-based, catchment-based (fieldwork) and laboratory-based research. This study will form part of the close collaboration with Shoreham Port, offering valuable academic insight into the effectiveness of the biodiversity enhancement structures. The results and performance of Southwick Reef will be shared with other ports and harbours across the UK and globally, contributing knowledge to similar conservation efforts.