Hard And Soft Engineering

Question 1

Sea walls

Answer 1

Flat faced or curved. Concrete wall.
At foot of cliffs of top of beach.
Dissipate and reduce wave energy.
Very effective, long life span
Expensive, ugly

Question 2

Groynes

Answer 2

Wooden fences,right angle to beach.
Interrupt longshore drift,catch sediment thus widening the beach.
Wider beach= absorb more wave energy
Larger beach= protect coastline and good for tourism. Not very expensive.
Starve down current beaches=more vulnerable to erosion.ugly.

Question 3

Rock armour

Answer 3

Boulders at foot of cliff.
Break wave and absorb energy.
Cheap to buy and maintain.
Unnatural, don’t fit with geology if cliff. Expensive to transport.

Gabions=cages of smaller rocks but same thing .

Question 4

Beach nourishment

Answer 4

Add sand/shingle to beach to make it higher and wider.
Cheap, benefits tourists, natural.
Constant maintenance needed.

Question 5

Dune regeneration

Answer 5

Artificially creating new sand dunes.
Act as a buffer between land and sea.
Use fencing to help trap sand and planting grass into matting to keep ecosystem.
Absorb storm and wave energy,cheap.
Time consuming maintenance, less effective than hard engineering.

Question 6

Managed retreat

Answer 6

Allow erosion and flooding.
Compensation to farmers.
Breaching existing coastal defences.
Cheap,salt marsh develop= new habitat and natural defence.
Land is lost, farmers livelihood gone.