Overview
Saltmarshes play a vital role in coastal resilience. As liminal spaces between land and sea, they offer a powerful nature-based solution and an alternative to hard, grey infrastructure for protecting coastal communities, environments, and heritage. Saltmarsh restoration is now a national priority, driven by its potential contributions to flood mitigation, biodiversity enhancement, and carbon sequestration. Yet public understanding of these benefits remains limited, with saltmarshes often seen as a “forgotten landscape” (McKinley et al., 2020) that is underappreciated or viewed unfavourably.
About this opportunity
This PhD will investigate why such perceptions persist and how they might be shifted. By examining diverse stakeholder perspectives, it will explore how saltmarshes can become more accepted and celebrated features of future coastal landscapes, essential to both climate adaptation and community resilience.
Aims and Objectives
The project will examine how historical and contemporary representations of saltmarshes shape public perceptions and behaviours, and identify strategies for reframing them as valued spaces of adaptation and resilience. Its objectives are to:
- Analyse how saltmarshes have been represented or misrepresented in historical, literary, and policy sources, tracing the origins and persistence of negative cultural attitudes.
- Assess current public and stakeholder perceptions of saltmarshes and how these influence support for restoration and nature-based coastal adaptation.
- Guide effective communication, engagement, and policy strategies that promote positive reimagining of saltmarshes as resilient, life-supporting landscapes.
Methodology
This interdisciplinary project combines environmental history, cultural geography, and qualitative social research. It will begin with archival and policy analysis to explore how early scientific framings of marshes as “wastelands” or disease-ridden places have shaped management attitudes. Through discourse and content analysis of scientific reports, maps, and policy documents, a national timeline of saltmarsh narratives will be created.
The research will then analyse artistic, literary, and folkloric depictions of saltmarshes, such as Black Shuck legends, smuggling tales, myths, and “haunted marsh” imagery, to trace how these narratives have influenced public emotion and meaning. These insights will be combined with qualitative interviews and focus groups to examine how historical narratives intersect with contemporary perceptions among visitors, staff, and volunteers at key sites. Comparative analysis will reveal the cultural drivers shaping attitudes toward saltmarshes and potential barriers to restoration.
Outputs and Impact
The PhD will produce conceptual, methodological, and practical outcomes, including:
- A Theory of Change linking cultural representation, perception, and behavioural response.
- Evidence-based communication strategies for reframing saltmarshes as aspirational, climate-resilient spaces.
- Policy and engagement recommendations for organisations such as the National Trust.
Collectively, the research will advance understanding of how people perceive and value coastal landscapes, contributing to academic debates on environmental meaning and to real-world efforts to build public support for nature-based adaptation.
Training and Development
The successful candidate will receive interdisciplinary training in environmental history, cultural geography, and climate adaptation, developing skills in archival research, qualitative interviewing, discourse analysis, and stakeholder engagement. They will gain hands-on experience in applied climate adaptation research, contributing to national discussions on nature-based solutions and coastal resilience.
This project is offered as part of The AHRC-NERC Living Well with Water [LWwW] Doctoral Focal Award at the University’s of Hull and Liverpool, in partnership with National Trust, Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) and Tate Liverpool. By applying for one of our fully funded interdisciplinary doctoral awards you will explore the relationship between water, culture and community in coastal regions and become part of a new generation of researchers shaping solutions to urgent human and planetary health challenges.
You will participate in our innovative doctoral training programme, undertake a placement with one of our partner organisations, and learn research skills transferable to a variety of future careers. https://www.hull.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/funded-opportunities/living-well-with-water
Further reading
Baptist, M. J., Dankers, P., Cleveringa, J., Sittoni, L., Willemsen, P. W. J. M., van Puijenbroek, M. E. B., de Vries, B. M. L., Leuven, J. R. F. W., Coumou, L., Kramer, H., & Elschot, K. (2021). Salt marsh construction as a nature-based solution in an estuarine social-ecological system. Nature-Based Solutions, 1, 100005. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nbsj.2021.100005
Curado, G., Manzano-Arrondo, V., Figueroa, E., & Castillo, J. M. (2013). Public perceptions and uses of natural and restored salt marshes. Landscape Research, 39(6), 668-679. https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2013.772960
McKinley, E., Pagès, J. F., Ballinger, R., & Beaumont, N. J. (2020). Forgotten landscapes: Public attitudes and perceptions of coastal saltmarshes. Ocean & Coastal Management, 187, 105117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2020.105117
Riley, M., & Harvey, D. (2007). Oral histories, farm practice and uncovering meaning in the countryside. Social & Cultural Geography, 8(3), 391-415. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360701488823
Riley, M. (2010). Emplacing the research encounter: Exploring farm life histories. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(7), 651-662. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800410374029
Shepard, C. C., Crain, C. M., & Beck, M. W. (2011). The protective role of coastal marshes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS ONE, 6(11), e27374. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0027374
Williams, B., & Riley, M. (2020). The challenge of oral history to environmental history. Environment & History, 26(2), 207-231. https://doi.org/10.3197/096734018X15254461646503