Reproduced with kind permission of Golf World and Neil Kelly author of Chapter 4, Recreation and Tourism, Climate Change and Insurance, The Chartered Insurance Institute 2001. Read about recent findings which show how UK golf courses are being damaged by coastal erosion and flooding.

Introduction

If you're one of over a million amateur golfers in the UK you may be concerned by a survey into the impact of climate change on links golf courses. The August 2000 issue of the magazine "Golf World" reported the outcome of investigations on how rising sea levels are putting some of the UK's greatest courses in peril.

How far are golfers themselves contributing to the demise of some of their favourite courses?

Sections in this article

Key findings

Where Next?

Key findings

The key findings make gloomy reading:

• 75% of clubs say they have suffered the effects of coastal erosion and/or flooding in the past 20 years. Aberdovey: "There's been constant and accelerating loss of dune frontage, with the threat of major breaches should extremes coincide."
• 31% of clubs have actually lost entire holes or parts of holes because of erosion. Royal Aberdeen: "Through wind and sea erosion the tees of the championship course have seriously suffered, and will probably have to be moved to alternative sites"
• 36% of clubs surveyed have experienced tidal flooding of some magnitude. Nairn: "In March 1984 serious flooding occurred between the 1^st and 7^th holes to a depth of several feet. This took a squad of eight greenkeepers with pumps ten days to clear."
• 11% have seen the sea breach the dunes and flood parts of the course. Conwy: "In 1990 a severe storm with a high tide caused the sea to flood several fairways"
• 69% say their course is facing serious threat from erosion and/or flooding in the next 50 years. Montrose: "This is the world's fifth oldest course and it would be criminal to lose it. But the town and course are under threat. We are currently surveying to put together a contingency plan-we might have to build new holes."

Where Next?

On ClimateX.org

See other explorations of climate change impacts in various articles in this section- for example ‘Counting the costs of UK climate change- and the benefits?', and ‘Health Ups and Downs of climate change'.

External links

See the UK Climate Impacts Programme for the latest studies into climate impacts and the projected impacts of climate change, on many aspects of UK life. http://www.ukcip.org.uk/