Case Study - Cliff Collapse - causes & impact on people

Question 1

What causes a cliff collapse?

Answer 1

The most common cause is weathering.

Question 2

Name a case study of a collapsing cliff:

Answer 2

Holderness

Question 3

What impact does a collapsing cliff have on the people?

Answer 3

It can wreck homes, jobs (farms) can leave them penniless.

Question 4

What is the rate of coastal erosion?

Answer 4

2 Metres a year.

Question 5

Physical causes:

Answer 5

The soft rock such as boulder clay erodes and crumbles easily and storms in the North sea.

Question 6

Human causes:

Answer 6

Because they’ve put groynes further up the coastline which has reduced the size of the beaches.

Question 7

Impact of peoples lives and the environment

Answer 7

The cliffs have collapsed which means people will lose their homes, it has an impact on jobs and especially farming, lots of farm land has been wrecked and lost. it has an impact on roads which means people cannot transport and impacts habitats.

Question 8

Peoples responses

Answer 8

Peoples have used hard and soft engineering strategies to try to protect the coastline they have used sea walls to protect the town they have also used rip rap groynes and soft engineering such as beach replenishment.

Question 9

Long term impacts:

Answer 9

Recently people have become to accept that the coastline is eroding and they now have a policy of not allowing people to build new houses next to the coast, it isn’t cost effective to save all of the land on the East coast of England therefore they have a policy of managed retreat.