coastal management - Holderness Flashcards
holderness background
east coast of England.
the fastest eroding coastline in Europe at an average of 1.8 metres a year.
forms one sediment cell ‘flamborough head’
key reasons for erosion rate
●Geology - the cliffs are made from soft clays which slumps when wet (saturation of clays exacerbate mass movement P)
●Naturally narrow beaches - these beaches give less protection to the coast and the cliffs are vunerable to undercutting and erosional P
●Powerful waves - waves at Holderness have a long uniterrupted fetch travelling over 800km from North Sea so waves have increased energy/destructive
Management strategies
○ They use SMP to sustainably manange the coastline and implemented hard engineering in specific zones
Bridlington is protected by a 4.7 km long sea wall in an area charactrised by extensive cliff retreat
Mappleton is protected by rock groynes in attempts to make the beach wider
Spurn Head is protected with groynes and rock armour.
challenges with the management
●There has been an increase in erosion at Great Cowden because of the groynes used in Mappleton. This has led to farms being destroyed by the erosion and the loss of 100 chalets at the Golden Sands Holiday Park.
●the use of rock amour has made area unaccesibble and negatively impacted the tourism sector and doesn’t match local geology
links to sediment cells
inputs sediment from spurn head to “The Wash”, the adjacent sediment cell which protects towns like King’s Lynn
evaluative for holderness
> effect of climate change on the system
whilst erosion poses a threat to the agricultural land and environment, its role in the wider sediment cell of providing inputs into other cells is more important as it protects other communities
the threat of climate change looks to upset the careful balance between natural and human activity.
this includes more severe storms and more intense winter rainfall. This, together with sealevel rise, is likely to increase flooding and coastal erosion. Only
with careful planning, using all data from current monitoring of, the coastal processes, can policies be drawn up to meet the demands of all the interested parties, attempting to balance the demands of the natural environment with local and national interests.
links to coastal landforms
> name and find the origins of the processes
spurn head - a temporary sediment store, the tip altered by the freshwater from River Humber and wave action. was affected in 2013 when defences couldnt cope with a huge storm surge (climate change)
flamborough head - boulder clays which is easily eroded and undercut. formed from the last glacial period where sediment originating from scandinavian ice sheets were dumped creating thick till deposits forming the cliffs/headland. Steep cliffs due to wave refraction occuring
faults in the (usually resistant) sedimentary rock has been exploited by marine and subaerial P forming Selwicks Bay. Active undercutting and erosion lead to the formation of erosional landforms across Flamborough Head
