Will Self's 2006 novel Dave's book - in which the author mixes a contemporary comedy novel with a science fiction dystopia - includes a map of London after the Flood. All that remains of the rest of England, now called the Ing Archipelago, are a few jagged islands. It's an extreme version of the apocalypse that climatologists foresee.
If sea levels rise well above the two feet already considered extremely likely - and no action is taken to build new coastal defences, London would not fare nearly as badly as West Sussex, Somerset, Kent or Lancashire, at least according to the projections of NGO Climate Central. And Lincolnshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire would almost disappear completely.
Coastal erosion is already changing the shape of Britain. On Sunday morning, a large section of the cliff at Newhaven in East Sussex, close to a public footpath and dozens of mobile homes, collapsed into the sea. The photos below taken from Birling Gap, a few miles up the coast, in 1960 and 2014, show how the clifftop has retreated.
At West Bay in Dorset, a 400-tonne rockfall on March 29 was followed by two more - on April 8, also in West Bay, and on April 9, when thousands of tonnes of rock broke free from the 44-metre cliff at nearby Burton Bradstock. Heavy rain caused by Storm Kathleen was blamed for creating the unstable conditions. A massive landslide at Lulworth Cove in February was also captured on a smartphone camera. Scroll through the years and you might get the impression that much of Dorset is falling into the sea.
East Anglia is another region prone to cliff collapses. Last year the Environment Agency reported that more than 2,500 homes in Norfolk and Suffolk were at immediate risk of coastal erosion. It said the area has "some of the fastest eroding coastlines in Europe".
In Trimingham, near Cromer, an 18th century farmhouse had to be demolished after coastal erosion left it clinging to a cliff. Last year, a total of 12 coastal homes in Norfolk were demolished amid fears they would collapse into the sea. The village of Hemsby, 20 miles up the Trimingham coast, has also been badly affected by cliff collapses.
Britain's coastline, including the islands, is 30,000 kilometers long, according to Ordnance Survey, while the mainland is 18,000 kilometers long. Cornwall is the county with the longest coastline (675 miles), followed by Essex (562 miles) and Devon (509 miles). Our island nation experiences some of the largest tides in the world, with a range of up to almost 15 meters.
That's a lot of coast to keep an eye on and a lot of history and habitation to consider. The above-mentioned provinces are among the most popular with holidaymakers and although much of the local population lives inland, some of the most sought-after locations are most at risk. The infrastructure is also at risk. The Committee on Climate Change (2018) estimates that approximately 995 miles of major roads, 400 miles of railways, 92 train stations and 55 former landfills are likely to be at risk of coastal flooding or erosion by the end of the century.
The impact of coastal erosion on ordinary people is far-reaching and can be devastating. Residents have to move. Beauty spots become danger zones. Holiday destinations are associated with bad news. In mid-April, a massive rockfall took place at a luxury development site at Whipsiderry Beach Newquay, earmarked for seven new second homes worth £7 million.
An interactive map created by environmental charity One Home highlights 21 coastal communities in England at risk of coastal erosion. These include coastal villages in Cornwall, Cumbria, East Yorkshire, Essex, Kent, the Isle of Wight, Northumberland, Norfolk and Sussex. They calculate that 2,218 properties could be lost by 2100, worth around £584 million.
This is probably a conservative estimate. The British Geological Survey (BGS) GeoCoast datasets, used by developers and government to inform coastal planning, note that "low-lying coastal areas are already vulnerable to flooding [but] With rising sea levels and storminess, the consequences could be felt over a larger area than we think." The BGS now estimates the number of properties within 25 meters of the potentially very vulnerable coast at 30,000.
When it comes to combating erosion, the Environment Agency and other agencies face several dilemmas. Is the investment worth the return? Will extensive coastal defense be effective in the long term? Data collection, flood forecasting, land resilience to flooding and managing river flows are all critical. Groynes, sea walls, rock revetments and breakwaters are some of the hard engineering options, which can be very expensive. Managing a beach and guaranteeing the sand function as coastal defense is a softer approach.
But according to Dr Luciana Esteves, coastal scientist at Bournemouth University: "Paradoxically, coastal protection works often contribute to coastal erosion, with effects that occur quite quickly and last for long periods of time. Sea walls or revetments that protect cliffs from erosion reduce the supply of sediment to the coast and this will result in a lowering of the beach level in front of the cliff or in further runoff.
"Groynes are built to trap sediment upstream of the structure and this invariably means less sediment is available to the beaches downstream. Any engineering work that causes direct or indirect interference with the sediment budget will have immediate and/or long-term effects on coastal change."
And as a Dorset Council spokesperson bluntly told the BBC: "The Jurassic Coast looks the way it does because of erosion - which means it is always moving. Rock chipping can and will happen at any time.
"Any remediation/preventive measure would harm the nature of this coast."
A side effect of coastal erosion is the formation of new coasts and islands. The BGS predicts that Flamborough Head's tidal marshes (and campsites) could eventually be flooded. Almost half of the flint beach - around 70 kilometers - at Dungeness is at risk of being flooded by 2100.
Spurn Point is a three-mile long natural protection for the Humber Estuary and Hull Harbour, and an important site for migratory birds. It consists of pebble beaches and mudflats and is an environment that is constantly changing. It has been hit by storms several times, most notably in December 2013 by a huge tidal wave. Under the modeled UKCP18 climate change scenarios, sea level rise is predicted to cut off Spurn Head completely by 2050.
Climate change could make all current predictions hopelessly optimistic. Some sources suggest that about 58 percent of coastal erosion, sea level rise and storm surges can be attributed to climate change. A widely cited 2022 paper from Imperial College states that rocky coasts are likely to retreat at a rate not seen for 3,000 to 5,000 years. At sites in Yorkshire and Devon, the researchers say, sea level rise will cause coastal cliffs to retreat at least 10 to 22 meters inland - a rate of erosion likely three to seven times that of today day and possibly even ten times higher.
So Dave's book perhaps not so far off after all - although the comic aspect may be lost on readers who see their Norfolk mobile home toppled over a cliff or their dream home in Cornwall suddenly left unenhanced by a floor-to-ceiling hole where the French doors used to be.
