Coastal defenses are objects and engineering techniques used to defend coasts against erosion and flooding. These may be hard engineering or soft engineering.
Hard engineering techniques involve building rock or concrete structures, most commonly sea walls, rock islands, rock aprons and breakwaters. Piles of large rocks are especially efficient at dissipating wave energy as they are able to move, and water can percolate through them.
Soft engineering most commonly involves encouraging the build up of land between the sea and the object being protected, most commonly a beach, but sometimes a salt marsh or dune system. Beach nourishment takes place at many coastal towns in western countries. Many places encourage sediment accumulation by constructing groynes, out of rock or concrete. These cause sand carried by longshore drift and sea currents to be deposited.
Vegetation can also be grown on the coasts to stabilize the sand and reduce the effects of erosion.
The alternative to coastal defenses is managed retreat.
The coastaldefences of the 18th century are divided into three groups: the coastal batteries, coastal redoubts and coastal entrenchments and later the fougass was also added.
The building of coastal batteries was in what could be said as an extension of the coastaldefences began in the 17th century.
These coastal batteries succeeded in resisting the British attempts to disembark soldiers in their area, while those built in Malta were overwhelmed immediately, partially due to Hospitaller traitors and lack of enthusiasm in the maintenance of the defences.
Coastal artillery is the branch of armed forces concerned with operating mobile anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications.
Coastal artillery appeared in Europe almost as soon as the introduction of cannons during the 16th century; when a colonial power took over an overseas territory, one of their first tasks was to build a coastal fortress, both to deter rival naval powers and to subjugate the natives.
Coastal artillery could be part of the Navy (as in Scandinavian countries), or part of the Army (as in Anglophone countries).
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