Physical Fieldwork

Question 1

Location

Answer 1

Slapton Sands in Start Bay, located in the country of Devon.
On the SW coast of the UK.

Question 2

Physical features of area studied:

Answer 2

• Shingle beach
• Meets the English Channel
• It has a fresh water lake behind it – Slapton Ley National Nature Reserve.

Question 3

Human features of area studied:

Answer 3

• Torcross is the town at the end of the beach and is protected by a large sea wall which cost £330,000 in 1980.
• Population of Slapton is 434 (2011 census).

Question 4

EVALUATION – Justification of location

Answer 4

1-Large enough to see variations
2-Not too big – safe to navigate around
3-Lots of coastal processes and protection methods present.

Question 5

KEY QUESTION: How and why does the beach characteristics change along a stretch of coastline?

Answer 5

1. Beach width increases moving north from Torcross.
   Expectation: The beach will get wider as we move north along the beach from Torcross, this is because of the SW prevailing wind causing long shore drift, transporting sediment up the beach, therefore making it wider.
2. Sediment size decreases with distance north from Torcross.
   Expectation: sediment size to decrease as we move further north along the beach from Torcross. This is because that due to longshore drift, more transportation has occurred as well as more erosion on the sediment.
3. Coastal protection increases with land value
   Expectation: The amount of coastal protection used along the coastline increases if the land value is also high. This would be the case if there were buildings such as houses and shops.

Question 6

1. Field sketch (qualitative)
   Description: we used a piece of paper, pencil and pen to draw the view in front of us.
   This was used to compare the coastline in different areas using stratified sampling technique along the beach.

Answer 6

Evaluation:
+ easy to complete
+ doesn’t require a lot of equipment
It can be subjective/bias

Question 7

2. Beach profiling (Quantitative)
   Description : One person stood at the bottom of the slope, another at the top. The distance between them is measured. The person at the top holds onto ranging pole whilst the person at the bottom measures the angle between them using a clinometer, looking at a specific point on the ranging pole. This is repeated for the whole width of the beach, using stratified sampling every 50m.

Answer 7

Evaluation:
+ Allows us to collect numerical data
+ Easy to complete
Needs equipment and groups

Question 8

3. Lithology (quantitative)
   Description: We collected data along the beach on sediment size using random sampling. We used a calliper to measure the width of sediment along its longest edge. This was then recorded in a table.

Answer 8

Evaluation:
+ easy to collect numerical data
+ Allows us to collect numerical data
- Sediment was selected at random, causing bias.

Question 9

1. Compound Bar Chart
   Description: The location was plotted on the x-axis, with the size of sediment represented on the Y axis.

Answer 9

+ This was useful as more than one data set could be plotted onto the same graph, making it easy to compare sites.
-Can be difficult to draw, especially if the scale isn’t appropriate.

Question 10

2. Beach profiles using Excel
   Description: Microsoft excel was used to work out the width of the beach.

Answer 10

+ demonstrates the gradient of the beach
+ can extrapolate raw data
- Specialist equipment/knowledge required

Question 11

3. Field sketch
   Description: a simplistic drawing with annotations picking out key features of the landscape.

Answer 11

+ used to present qualitative data
+ easy to complete
- It can be bias/subjective

Question 12

1. Data and information from the BGS (British Geological Survey)

Description: we used this information to investigate physical processes in the bay.

Answer 12

Evaluation:
+ Enabled us to see if the primary data we collected was in line with more large scale data collection.
+ Enables us to question the validity of our data
- May not have been up to date.

Question 13

2. Zoopla

Description: we used this information to research property prices in Torcross and surrounding area.

Answer 13

Evaluation:
+ enabled us to accurately find out the land value

Question 14

1. GE graph was used with Google Earth

Description: This enabled us to plot data onto the map of Start Bay.

Answer 14

+ Enabled us to see the spatial variations very visibly between the different areas.

Question 15

2. Graph analysis

Description: data was analysed by looking at the graphs drawn and looking at the patterns in the data to see whether the hypothesis were correct or not.

Answer 15

+ Enables us to spot clear trends/patterns
- Relies on accurate data and an accurately drawn graph.

Question 16

Conclusion 1: the beach width does increase as you move north from Torcross – so hypothesis 1 can be accepted.

Answer 16

This is due to the data on site one (closest to Torcross) had a width of 22.9 metres and site 6 (furthest away) had a width of 30.1 metres.

This was as expected, as due to the process of longshore drift, sediment is moved further north away from Torcross.

Question 17

Conclusion 2: sediment size does decrease as you move north from Torcross so hypothesis 2 can be accepted.

Answer 17

This is due to the data on site one (nearest Torcross) having a mean (average) sediment size of 5.1cm and site 6 (furthest from Torcross) had a mean sediment size of 1.8cm.

This was as expected due to the process of attrition (sediment bumping into each other getting smaller and smoother) acing upon the sediment as it moves further up north.

Question 18

Conclusions can be trusted because:

Answer 18

+ large amount of data was collected – 6 study sites along Start Bay.
+ Variety of qualitative (field sketches) and quantitative (beach profiling and lithology) which provided representative results.
+ Our data was backed up by secondary data.
+ Steps were taken to minimise bias e.g. working in groups and using sampling methods.

Question 19

Conclusions can’t be trusted:

Answer 19

• Data was only collected on a week day in January, therefore findings may not be representative and conclusions therefore may not be reliable.
• Some groups had more time than others to do a pilot study (practice data collection) with the equipment so some may have had more accurate results than others.