St Mary’s Academic Delivers Talk for Royal Geographical Society Lecture Series

Stuart Oliver, Senior Lecturer in Geography at St Mary’s University, Twickenham (SMU), has delivered a talk as part of the Royal Geographical Society’s (RGS) “Inspirations” lecture series.

The RGS’s “Inspirations” is a series of public lectures delivered by experts on geographical issues of contemporary interest. Stuart, who teaches the Sustainability module on the International Business Management degree at SMU, gave his lecture on ‘The future coast: managed realignment’.

In his lecture, Stuart explored rising sea levels and the organised abandoning of sections of the coastal shore so that the coast can re-establish "natural" defences, rather than increasingly expensive repairs to sea walls.

Speaking on his lecture, Stuart said, “Climate change means the British coast is increasingly at risk. Nature-based measures like the managed realignment of the coast seem to provide us with an exciting new way to make the shoreline truly sustainable, and it was a great pleasure for me to be given an opportunity to talk about the subject at the Royal Geographical Society.”

Stuart has previously written on managed realignment in his 2021 book Land Abandoned to the Sea, as well as in a 2023 article for The Geographical Journal.

Watch the full lecture for the RGS here.