Coastal protection in Latvia

¹ Faculty of Economics, Latvia University of Agriculture
E-mail liga.brunina@baltlineglobe.lv
² Faculty of Information Technologies, Latvia University of Agriculture
³ Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences, Latvia University

Abstract

This article presents the situation of existing protection solutions against the coastal erosion set up along the coast of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Riga in the territory of Latvia. The foreseen global climate change impacts and the ever-growing human load on the coastal areas along with the lack of erosion policy have created serious concern about safety and sustainability of the Latvian coastline. The authors argue that the lack of legislation regulating responsibilities and rights of private, legal or public land-owners in cases of coastal erosion do not facilitate the solution of problems.

To evaluate the structure of the coastal protection in terms of protected areas, types of protection solutions, number of protected areas, funding and maintenance of the protection structures, and to collect information on feedback and general knowledge about implemented coastal protection activities from the responsible institutions, interviews with the Construction Board experts were carried out.

The results show that all the experts of the Construction Boards are aware of coastal erosion issues on the Latvian coastline in general and in their competence territory in particular. Many of the experts were eager to share their opinion on coastal protection policy in Latvia and particularly the policy issues in relation to coastal erosion.