Rising seas threaten Britain's best-loved beaches

LONDON, Feb 14 (Reuters) Some of Britain's best loved beaches and coastline, from Golden Cap in Dorset to Formby Sands in Lancashire, are under threat from erosion and flooding, the National Trust said.

Rising sea levels could damage hundreds of miles of the English and Welsh coast over the next 100 years, according to a study commissioned by the conservation group.

Houses, farmland, lighthouses and sand dunes will be submerged as climate change and rising seas fuel the erosion, the ''Shifting Shores'' report, released yesterday said.

''The coast is a canary for climate change,'' the report said.

''It shows how the effects are happening today and close to home. Sea-level rise and climate change are forecast to increase the scale and pace of coastal change.'' The National Trust, which owns nearly one tenth of the coast of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, said some of its most important sites were at risk, including: * Golden Cap, Dorset. The highest point on Britain's south coast could see erosion increase to more than two metres a year.

* Formby Sands. Over the next 100 years, the sands in the northeastern county of Lancashire could recede by more than 400 metres.

* Birling Gap, Sussex. Erosion has already claimed several cottages on the edge of the chalk cliffs in the southeast of England. The remaining houses and a hotel are under threat.

* Studland Peninsula, Dorset. The southern part of the beach is losing up to three metres each year, threatening cafes, toilets, a shop and beach huts on the south coast peninsula.

Over the next century, erosion could affect more than 600 km of National Trust coastline, the study says. More than 4,000 hectares of Trust land could flood.

The study warns that 169 sites along 60 percent of the Trust's coastline could lose land to the sea. The changes could affect millions of people as no one in Britain lives more than 75 miles from the coast.

The National Trust said it faced a difficult choice between letting the coastline erode naturally and intervening to protect houses or the landscape.

It has opted for a policy of ''adaptation'' -- working with nature rather than trying to hold the line with stronger sea defences.

Britain's coast has been evolving for tens of thousands of years, with some landmarks now submerged. Occasionally the process works the other way and the sea retreats, leaving former ports stuck miles inland.

The medieval port of Dunwich in Suffolk, eastern England, now lies under the North Sea, while coastal erosion created the Needles, landmark chalk stacks off the Isle of Wight.

Southeast England has been sinking slowly since the Ice Age and sea levels on the east coast have risen 20 cm since 1900, the Trust said.

REUTERS VD HS0825