What would happen to the Solent, Isle of Wight and Tides

jimi

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If they dammed up Hurst narrows, built a causeway and a motorway across?
 

jimi

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Well I don't, however without the tide rushing pasr Hurst would Christchurch Bay become one huge shingle beach?
 

Cutter

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Gordon Brown would put a charge on it. Bridge buoy wouldnt be needed. [oh really!] for the rti though!
 

Cutter

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thats interesting I put bu gg er and it got changed to [oh really!] . This could be fun!
 

Phoenix of Hamble

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Years ago I did an endurance dinghy race where you had to carry your boat across a causeway at one point.....

Be interesting to see 'em trying to lug a 70 footer over a dual carriageway......
 

JackFrobisher

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Wasn't there once a plan to do that and generate electricity from the tide ... or something? Like the French do in the Rance.
 

BarryH

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It would cock up the longshore drift of the south coast in that area. Tho Hengisbury head would be redundant. Probably the low lying areas would flood at high water and the solent would hold sewerage as it wouldn't "drain" away on the tides. In short you wouldn't win.......why do you ask?
 

BrendanS

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Fresh Water Bay would fill up with gravel within two years, and a new gravel bank about a mile offshore IoW. The current Hurst spit would start extending out to the current gravel bank. Lymington/Keyhaven salt marshes would start restoring themselves. Why do you ask?
 

Peppermint

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Re: Wouldn\'t happen.

From an engineering perspective damming would be unsound. Every effort would be made to minimize the restriction of flow to reduce lateral forces on the new structure.

These days it's unlikely that restriction of flow would meet the strict environmental requirements that would be placed on the project. The Solent being subject to a number of preservation orders to maintain habitat.

I don't know of any modeling research done on this project, I'll check though, but I would suspect that within 10 years of the damming Lymington would be closed and Southampton wouldn't be able to maintain it's 20m operating draught . 50 years on, without major dredging, Southampton wouldn't be able to operate at all. Portsmouth would probably pay for the dam.
 

cgull

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you must be the sort of bloke that would jump on my sandcastles and moats to see what happens to the water!
 
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