Isle of Wight Project
The people of Chale on the Isle of Wight, live rather close to the edge of an eroding cliff. All the expert advice is that this is a natural process and there is nothing we can do to stop it. However, when you live this close to a cliff edge, it does give you a different perspective. The people of Chale understand that this is a process they cannot stop, but they may slow it down a little by their actions.
All surface water flows sink down the soil to a thin rock
ledge. The soils become as butter icing on a chocolate cake, and begin to slide
off the edge of the cliff. The idea was to re-direct the surface and sewage
water flows to a central tank, where it would then be pumped to a nearby stream,
which would take the flows 1.5 miles further along the coast. This should allow
the soils to become
All that was needed was for the sewage effluent from the septic tanks, to pass through a Reedbed, cleaning it up sufficiently to allow it to discharge into the stream. This was done, and so far the rate of cliff erosion has not taken any houses over the edge.