P3 - Physical Fieldwork - River Clwyd Flashcards
What is the aim/title of your physical fieldwork investigation?
To investigate how the bed load of the River Clwyd changes with distance downstream
What is the hypothesis of your physical fieldwork investigation?
The bedload becomes smaller and more rounded with distance downstream
What was the purpose of your fieldwork enquiry?
To investigate our aim and see whether our hypothesis was correct. Also to see whether it fitted with the theory learned from the Bradshaw model
Describe the underlying theory of you fieldwork?
-Bradshaw model (suggests bedload should become smaller and more rounded with distance downstream due to attrition)
What factors needed to be considered when selecting a suitable question for your fieldwork?
HAD TO CONSIDER: TIME, EQUIPMENT AND HAS TO BE BASED ON WHAT WE WERE STUDYING FOR OUR GCSE
- needed to know the theory surrounding it
- only had one school day to collect the data, so had to be within one hour away from Chester
- the school had flow meters, callipers and tape measures allowing us to measure bedload size and shape
What was site 1 of the fieldwork?
Clocaenog forest (4km from the source)
- rural, forested, steep relief, narrow channel (2.7m), rocky and irregular bedload
- river in its natural state
What was site 2 of the fieldwork?
Melin-y-wig (9km from the source)
- hamlet, buildings present, 4m channel, bedload larger and angular
- evidence of human influence on the river
What was site 3 of the fieldwork?
Ruthin Park (27km from the source) -market town, 6m channel, bed load smaller rounder and smoother
What are the advantages of the chosen location for your fieldwork?
- River Clwyd was shallow enoughto get in and collect data (low risk of drowning)
- River Clwyd had three survey points which meant there was a long enough section of river to show changes in the size and shape of bedload
Justify the risk assessment you undertook in relation to you enquiry:
RISK ASSESSMENT IMPORTANT TO FIND A SUITABLE< ACCESSIBLE AND SAFE RIVER
- picked shallow, slow velocity, not steep gradient areas to reduce the risk of slips, trips and falls (also had ‘buddy’ system so we looked out for each other)
- had a first aid kit, mobile phone, Weil’s disease is a water borne disease so we took hand sanitizer for lunch
- appropriate clothing for warm or wet conditions, to minimise chance of hypothermia and a hat and sun cream to minimise the risk of sunstroke
Why was risk assessment important when planning your fieldwork enquiry?
- important to avoid water deeper than knee level, to prevent being knocked over by the river and potential hitting your head
- since we were working in a river important to take hand sanitizer to protect against Weil’s disease
Outline one method that you used for the data collection of primary data:
- used a tape measure to measure the width and divided it by 20
- at every twentieth point we randomly selected the first piece of sediment we touched
- we measure the long axis length with callipers and classified the shape using the Power’s index chart
Outline the limitations of one method of data collection used in your fieldwork investigation:
- we had to use the Power’s index chart, which is subjective since it’s a visual chart
- people can view one rock as different categories which calls the question of our combined results
Outline one method that you used for the data collection of secondary data:
- used a website ‘naturalresources.wales’ that provided us with specific discharge data for the day
- used this data to make a graph and compared it with the primary data we collected
What is a primary source?
primary sources are raw data that we collected in the field (such as measuring the long axis of bedload with callipers)
What is a secondary source?
secondary sources of data are those which you can use for research before and after the actual fieldwork day (such as the ‘naturalresources.wales’ website)
What is qualitative data?
qualitative data involves collecting opinions, perspective, thoughts and feelings (such as we used the Power’s index chart which was subjective)
What is quantitative data?
quantitative data is in numerical form, it is objective in nature (such as measuring the pebbles long axis with callipers)
Justify how you recorded your data:
The data was recorded in a booklet with a separate page for each site so we didn’t get them mixed up
- 20 rows so we ensured we recorded all the data
- had columns for length and angularity
Outline a sampling technique you used to collect data:
systematic sampling (data collected at regular intervals) -measured the width with a tape measure, divided it by 20 then at every 20th point picked up a pebble random sampling -actually picking up the pebble
Justify one primary data collection method used in relation to the aim(s) of your physical geography enquiry:
hypothesis ‘bedload will become smaller and more rounded with distance downstream’
-callipers were used to measure the long axis, the reason we used callipers is because they gave accurate readings in millimetres, making our data more reliable and results more accurate
Justify the use of maps or photographs or field sketches in your physical geography enquiry:
- we used an ordanance survey map to trace the route of the river Clywd from source to mouth
- reason we used OS map we could see which areas were accessible and safe, and we could identify physical and human factors at each site that could affect our results
Assess the effectiveness of your data collection methods:
- systematic sampling (avoids bias, ensures good coverage of each river site, data reliable and accurate)
- random sampling (actual pebble selected, however if the pebble was too big we had to pick another, affects the reliability)
- Power’s chart (subjective, affects the reliability)
With reference to one technique you chose to present data in your enquiry, justify the choice of this technique:
-to present bedload measurements I used a dispersion graph (allows me to directly compare all the sites results, gives a good indication of the spread, very clear which bedload size dominates due to clustering, allows you to identify anomalous results, can work out mean median and mode from it)
