Coasts at the Edge

Image: Student Sue Jones with Edge Hill's Alan Bedford and Jennifer Millington of the University of Wolverhampton.

Geographers gathered to unearth environmental issues and the natural history of the region?s coastal zone at the seventh annual Coastal Conference at Edge Hill University's Ormskirk Campus.

The conference, organised by the Department of Natural Geographical and Applied Sciences, follows the appearance of Edge Hill's expert in physical geography Dr Annie Worsley on the BBC's popular natural history programme Coast, when she helped to reconstruct the local environment relating to the footprints found in the sands at Formby Point.

Students, lecturers and representatives from the National Trust and the Universities of Liverpool and Wolverhampton shared their findings at the conference on subjects including estuary management, the impact of scrap metal production on the Sefton coast, the importance of saltmarshes to Ribble birds and the conservation of the Natterjack toad in Cumbria.

Steve Suggit is Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography and Geology at the University: "The conference provides the perfect platform for presenting geographical findings to a range of experts from North West organisations, as well as those from other universities."

Third year degree students also gained valuable experience presenting their final year projects, based on topics ranging from the contamination of Southport and Crosby marine lakes, to conservation and the Sefton Coastal Partnership, studies of the salt marshes of the Sefton Coast and coastal erosion by storms at Formby Point.