How can coastlines be managed to meet the needs of all players?

Question 1

economic costs of coastal recession

Answer 1

• loss of property in the form of homes, businesses and farmland.
  These are relatively easy to quantify

Question 2

social costs of coastal recession

Answer 2

• costs of relocation and loss of livelihood/jobs which can be quantified but also include impact on health (such as stress and worry) which are much harder to quantify

Question 3

environmental costs of coastal recession

Answer 3

• loss of coastal ecosystems and habitats. these are almost impossible to quantify financially but are likely to be small

Question 4

purpose and impact of rip rap

Answer 4

• to break up and dissipate wave energy, often used at the base of sea walls to protect them from undercutting scour
• reduces wave energy
• sediment deposition between rocks may become vegetated over time

Question 5

purpose and impact of offshore rock breakwater

Answer 5

• forces waves to break offshore, rather than at the coast, reducing wave energy and erosive force
• deposition encouraged between breakwater and beach can interfere with longshore drift

Question 6

purpose and impact of sea wall

Answer 6

• a physical barrier against erosion, they often also act as flood barriers, modern sea walls are designed to dissapate, not reflect, wave energy
• destruction of the natural cliff face and foreshore environment if reflective can reduce beach volume

Question 7

purpose and impact of revetments

Answer 7

• to abosrb wave energy and reduce swash distance by encouraging infiltration
• reduce erosion on dunes faces and mud banks
• reduced wave power can encourage deposition and may become vegetated

Question 8

advantages of hard engineering

Answer 8

• obvious to at-risk people that ‘something is being done’ to protect them
• a ‘one off’ solution that could protect a stretch of coast for decades

Question 9

disadvantages of hard engineering

Answer 9

• costs are usually very high and there are on-going maintenance costs
• even very carefully designed engineering solutions are prone to failure
• coastlines are made visually unattactive and the needs of coastal ecosystems are usually overlooked
• defenses built in one place frequently have adverse effects further along the coastline

Question 10

purpose and impact of groynes

Answer 10

• to prevent longshore movement of sediment and encourage deposition building a wider higher beach
• deposition and beach accretion
• prevention of lsd sediment starvation and increased erosion down-drift.