Crowded Coasts Key Vocabulary Flashcards
Abrasion
Also known as corrosion. It is the wearing away of the cliff by sand, fragments of rock and boulders that are being hurled at the cliff by the waves. It causes grinding in a sand paper like action.
Advance the line
A coastal management strategy to move the defence of an area seawards of its existing position. This is a rare decision to build forward of the present position.
Anoxic
Without oxygen.
Area of outstanding national beauty
This title gives special protection to an area that is an especially attractive landscape.
Backwash
The wave washing straight down the beach, due to gravity.
Barrier beach
An accumulation of sand and shingle lying parallel to the shoreline that encloses a marsh or lagoon on the landward side.
Boulder clay
The unsorted sediment deposited directly below a glacier, which has a range of particle sizes from fine clay to rock fragments and boulders. Also known as glacial till
Coast
The part of the land most affected by its proximity to the sea and that part of the ocean most affected by its proximity to the land. It is a zone of transition. The frontier between the land and the sea.
Coastal squeeze
a) where a coastal sediment is prevented from expanding due to the sea on one side and rural areas inland or b) an environmental situation where the coastal margin is squeezed between the fixed landward boundary and the rising sea level.
Coastalisation
The movement of people to coastal areas. It can be used in the negative sense of intensive housing development along coastlines, leading to environmental degradation.
Constructive waves
Are depositional waves with a long wavelength and a low wave height. They are low frequency and have a high waver period. The swash is stronger than the back wash. The beach will have a low gradient profile.
Corrosion
Or solution is when the acids in the sea water dissolve the rocks.
Cost-benefit analysis
A technique where projected public schemes are evaluated in terms of social outcomes as well as in terms of profit and loss.
Cretaceous
Geological period 65-135 million years ago
Cuspate foreland
A triangular accumulation of sediment such as sand and shingle.
DEFRA
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in the UK, is in charge of policy about coastal erosion and they come up with shoreline management plans.
Destructive waves
Are erosional waves that have a short wavelength and high height. Hey are high frequency and low period. The backwash is stronger than the swash so the gradient of the beach is steep.
Do nothing
A coastal management strategy that involves monitoring the situation and letting nature take its course. No coastal defence activity takes place except for safety measures.
Dynamic equilibrium
The balanced state of a system when the inputs and outputs are equal. If one element changes because of an outside influence, this upsets the internal equilibrium and affects all the components. By the process of feedback, the system adjusts to the change and regains equilibrium.
Environment Agency
Implements the policies of DEFRA to build flood and coastal defences in the UK.
Erosion
The wearing away of the land surface and the removal of debris by wind, water or ice.
Eustatic change
A world wide change of sea level which may be caused by the growth and decay of ice sheets.
Eutrophication
The process by which ecosystems experbecome more fertile environments as detergents, sewage and artificial fertilisers flow in.
Fetch
The total distance of open water that a wind blows across.
Freeze Thaw
The weathering of rocks which occurs when water which has penetrated joints and cracks freezes and expands.
Geology
The scientific study of the Earth, including the origin and history of the rocks and soils of which the Earth is made
Geomorphology
The study of the shape of the earth and the processes that work on the surface of the earth
Hard engineering
Coastal protection methods that are designed to overcome natural processes. Structures are built to resist wave and tidal energy and sub aerial processes that cause mass movement eg sea walls