Tuesday, 28 March 2017

COAST
IGCSE Geography
- Cost are important
• Tourism
• sport (i.e surfing)
• ecosystem
• fishing
• oil and gas reserves (found under oceans)
• housing (choose to live near coast)
• Industry (easy to trade)
• transport (of goods and services)
• Walkers (people enjoy walking along coasts)
- why under threat
• global warming
• Pollution
• litter
• overfishing
• Erosion
• tropical storms
• Privatisation (being privately owned)
- waves depend on:
1. Strength of the wind

2. length of time that the wind blows

3. Distance of sea that the wind has to cross

Fetch: the distance the wind blows over the surface of water

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- 4 types of erosion

• hydraulic action: weight of waves compress air in cracks

• Corrosion: dissolving rock by acids in sea water, carried away by solution

• Corrasion(abrasion): particles carried by waves hit against cliff=sand paper action

• Attrition: particles carried by the waves crash against cliff, eroding cliffs

- type of waves

• Destructive (weak swash, strong backwash; shorter wavelength; higher in

amplitude; higher frequency), erode and transport material away from beaches

• Constructive (strong swash, weak backwash; longer wavelength; lower in amplitude,

less frequent), deposits material

- Bay and headlands

- *differentiated erosion*-key term include in both headland and bay formations
• Bay (usually found between two headlands): formed by differentiated erosion, less
resistant rocks erode rapidly by sea through hydraulic action/abrasion, etc. Hard
rocks erode more slowly than soft rocks

• Headlands: same as above. when soft resistant rocks are eroded, hard resistant
rocks are left to form headlands

- Wave cut platform

*need to know how to try the diagram above and also need to know how to identify the
features on the pic above

1.formed when high tide and strong sea attacks and erodes the bottom of the cliff

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=wave cut notch

2. When wave cut notch gets bigger, weight of rock above increase and eventually it
cannot support its weight and collapse

3. repeating and resulting a retreat of coastline

- Caves, arches, stacks and

stump (usually found on
headlands)

1. waves always find weaknesses

in headlands and start attacking it

2. overtime, crack may turn into a

cave

3. cave will get bigger and cut all

the way through the headland
making an arch

4. arch gets bigger and the weight of arch roof collapse=stack

5. stack is then eroded by sea and weathered form the air=stump

- Longshore drift (transportation)

Define: process of waves moving and
transporting material along the
coastline

1. wave approach coast at an angle

parallel to the direction of the
prevailing wind

2. Swash of the materials carry

beach material at an angle

3. backwash then flows back to the

sea at a straight line at 90°

4. transport material sideways along

the coast , occurs in a zigzag

*need to know how to draw diagram

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- Depositional landforms

- SPIT: (formed near mouths

of rives where coastline changes
direction creating protection) long
stretch of sand connected to
mainland but stretching out into
the sea

- when the direction of the

coast changes longshore drift
continues into the sea and
material is deposited instead of
transported

- If deposition is greater than erosion, a sit

will build up overtime (similar to sand dunes)

- BARS: out that connects two headbands

or run across face of a small bay

- MARSH: low energy ecosystem that

develops behind a spit (have some salt resistant vegetation

- SAND DUNES (conditions): wind blow sand deposition by wind, sand dunes build
overtime (formed by dry sand being blown up the beach)

- 1. strong wind
- 2. Supply of wind
- 3. obstacles (marram grass as it has wide spreading roots to trap sand)
- BEACH: accumulation of sand between lowest and highest tides

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- Receive material from longshore drift and constructive waves

- SALT MARSH: found behind spits and low energy coastlines
- Deposition exceeds erosion
- salt resistant vegetation (halophytic)

CASE STUDY

(7 mark)

COASTAL MANAGEMENT: Happisburgh, southeastern coast of england

average rate of erosion: 5-8m per year

reasons: soft glacial sands, gravels which is less resistant to wave energy

long fetch of wind exposed to North sea

Impact: 27 houses lost to sea and loss of farmland since 1986

Coastal defences/management (hard engineering vs soft strategies)

- Aim: stop erosion, reduce wave energy, reflect wave energy and absorb wave energy

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- HARD:

• Groynes: stop longshore drift transporting away beach material

(effective but need replacement and look ugly)

• sea wall: made out of concrete times to absorb waves

energy(effective but ugly)

• rock amour (granite)

- SOFT:
• dune stabilisation: planting vegetation (i,e marram grass making them more stable
and reducing the moisture content as marina grass has wide spreading roots and
they will have water uptake)

• cliff regarding: making cliffs less steep (steep cliffs are unstable because of
undercutting)

• beach nourishment: adding more sand to beach

• managed retreat (changing some inland ecosystems by adding
salt water)

CORAL REEFS

- Conditions: tropical sea conditions, warm water clear water no

pollution, sunlight, water less than 60m deep

- Three types:

• Fringing: circle coastline and islands

• Barrier: separated from island by deep lagoon
• Atoll: submerged
CASE STUDY

(7 mark)

CORAL REEFS: great barrier reef

3000km long and up to 52m wide, located in Australia in the tropics

BENEFITS

- support 25% marine species

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- Protect coastline from erosion
- form natural barrier against tropical storm
- Contribute to material formations of beaches
- Tourism industry: 2 million tourists
- provide fishing ground
- great barrier reed marine park authority
THREATS

- coral bleaching occurred in 1996, 2002 and 2006

- Overfishing led to population explosion o starfish (predator of coral reefs)
- water pollution in agriculture in Queensland
- marie trading
- Deforestation
- Global warming
CORAL REEF MANAGEMENT

- Conservation zones
- fish stocks
- Sewage outlets
- Banning the dropping of anchors
- reduce use of fertilisers
- educate people about coral reefs
TROPICAL STORMS: super typhoon Haiyan

December 2012

affected central Philippines

5-6m high storm surge

6500 confirmed deaths , 1000 missing

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destroyed hectares of sugar and rice vegetation which greatly impacted Philippines’
economic development as they strongly rely on food production to sustain life