Coastal Management Flashcards
Hard e - Sea wall
Concrete barriers usually built along cliff fronts reflect waves back into sea.
Effective at stopping sea and makes walkway for ppl.
Look unnatural and v expensive.
Hard e - rock armour
Often large boulders placed along base of cliffs to absorb wave energy.
Fairly cheap, easy to maintain and can be used for fishing- attracts tourists
Rocks are brought from other parts of the world so they look out of place + trans expensive
Groynes
Wooden barriers on a beach. Encourage wide beach bt preventing LSD which helps absorb energy from waves, reducing rate of cliff erosion.
Cheap, retain wide sandy beaches, pop w/ tourists
Increases erosion in beaches futher along coast
Gabion
- Wire cages filled with rocks that can be built up to support a cliff to provide further protection.
- Cheap to produce and will encourage growth of vegetation
- Cages rust after 5- 10 years and very unattractive. this discourages pople from visiting the area.
what is soft engineering?
Attempts to work with the natural processes at work on the coastline.
SE - Beach nourishment
- The addition of sand and shingle to an existing beach to make it higher or wider. This sediment is obtained locally (e.g. dredging from the sea bed)
- Easy to maintain, blends in with natural environment, increases tourism as you get a bigger wider beach
- Needs repeating
SE- Dune Regeneration
- It is the artificial creating of new sand dunes or the restoration of existing sand dunes. Trees can be planted so the roots hold the sand together.
- Act as a physical barrier between sea and land as they absorb energy and water looks natural, cheap
- Trees might need fertilisers adding, takes a long time for trees or grass to establish and grow.
SE - Beach reprofiling
• Artificially changing the shape of the beach using the existing material. After winter storms, bulldozers push sand and shingle up the beach creating a steeper beach.
- protects land by absorbing wave energy
- fairly cheap
• needs repeating, especially in winter.
What is managed retreat?
the deliberate policy of allowing the sea to flood an area of low value land
What is managed retreat?
Often the policy when existing sea defences are allowed to fai;. The sea floods the land behind breached defences but builds up its own natural defences such as mudflats, marches, beaches
Where can managed retreat be used?
This can only really work where pop desnity is low and there is little infrastructure to protect
What are the advantages of managed retreat?
- seen as a much more sustainable way of managing the coastline thahn HE methods
- also be much cheaper than HE projects
What are the disadvantages of managed retreat?
- Good quality agricultural land may eb flooded/ lost
- Settlements and property along the coastal strip may also be destroyed
- Coastal blight occurs where the price of properties in an area subject to maanged retreat falls sig, meaning homeowners find themselves in a negative equiy and are unable to afford the cost of a move inland
CASE STUDY: HOLDERNESS COAST- how much is the coast retreating by?
about 1.8m of land is lost to sea every year
CASE STUDY: HOLDERNESS COAST- how will thata affect peole living here
Farms, businesses and homes are threatened by the erosion
