coastal management Flashcards
Coasts are important for many different reasons and for different groups of people. They provide:
places to live
places to work, eg fishing, ports and power stations
places to relax - leisure and tourism industries
wildlife habitats
beautiful scenery
educational value, eg geology and natural history
The way the coast is managed can cause conflict. There are two types of coastal management:
Hard engineering - this involves building structures to protect the coast.
Soft engineering - this involves working with nature by using natural materials or allowing nature to take back areas.
Hard engineering is a coastal management technique used to protect coasts,by absorbing the energy of waves, preventing erosion and flooding. They are highly visible man-made structures used to stop or disrupt natural processe
Hard engineering
Soft engineering is where the natural environment is used to help reduce coastal erosion and river flooding. At the coast soft engineering is where a beach is used to absorb wave energy and reduce erosion.
Soft engineering
Riprap or rock armour an effective solution to protect coastlines and structures from erosion by the sea, rivers, or streams. maintain coastlines. Large boulders interlocked together to form rock revetments can be used to control erosion by armouring the beach face and dissipating wave energy.
rock armour
sea wall
A seawall is a structure made of concrete, masonry or sheet piles, built parallel to the shore at the transition between the beach and the mainland or dune, to protect the inland area against wave action and prevent coastal erosion. Seawalls are usually massive structures designed to resist storm surges.
groyne
A groyne is a shore protection structure built perpendicular to the shoreline of the coast (or river), over the beach and into the shoreface (the area between the nearshore region and the inner continental shelf), to reduce longshore drift and trap sediments
gabions
The purpose of a gabion revetment is to provide short term (5-10 years) protection from backshore erosion by absorbing wave energy along the dune face. Their application is restricted to the upper part of sandy beaches, since they are not sufficiently durable to withstand regular direct wave action.
beach nourishment
Beach nourishment is the mechanical re-placement of sand in the coastal zone to maintain sand in the littoral system. It stabilizes the shoreline and supports the flood and/or erosion protection of the coast. Beach nourishment has been widely practised in Europe in the last decades.
Beach reprofiling
Changing the profile or shape of the beach. It usually refers to the direct transfer of material from the lower to the upper beach. Dune regeneration - Action taken to build up dunes and increase vegetation to strengthen the dunes and prevent excessive coastal retreat.
