Curriculum Portal

neurologyYou need to know

• The coast is the zone where the land, sea and atmosphere interact, including cliff, beach, nearshore and offshore areas.
• A landform is an individual physical feature such as a spit or cliff, while a landscape is a wider area made of connected landforms with shared characteristics.
• Coastal landscapes are shaped by interactions between geology, relief, sediment supply, marine energy, sub-aerial processes, ecosystems, climate and human activity.
• A coastal system has inputs such as sediment and wave energy, stores such as beaches and dunes, transfers such as longshore drift, and outputs such as sediment lost offshore or into another sediment cell.
• Dynamic equilibrium in a coastal system means that inputs and outputs are broadly balanced over time, although the coastline can still change in the short term.
• Positive feedback amplifies change in a coastal system, while negative feedback reduces change and helps return the system towards equilibrium.
• The main sources of energy in coastal environments are wind, waves, tides and currents.
• Wave size and energy are mainly controlled by wind strength, wind duration and fetch, which is the distance of open water over which wind blows.
• Constructive waves have a strong swash, weak backwash, low frequency and tend to build beaches, while destructive waves have a weak swash, strong backwash, high frequency and tend to erode beaches.
• High-energy coasts usually experience powerful waves, strong winds, rapid erosion and exposed landforms, while low-energy coasts usually experience weaker waves, deposition and sheltered landforms such as mudflats and saltmarshes.
• A sediment cell, or littoral cell, is a stretch of coastline within which sediment is largely transferred in a closed system between sources, stores and sinks.
• A sediment budget is the balance between sediment inputs and outputs; a positive sediment budget encourages deposition, while a negative sediment budget increases erosion risk.
• Marine erosion includes hydraulic action, wave quarrying, abrasion or corrasion, cavitation, solution and attrition.
• Coastal transportation includes traction, saltation, suspension, solution and longshore drift, which moves sediment along the coast when waves approach at an angle.
• Sub-aerial processes at the coast include weathering, mass movement and runoff, which weaken cliffs and supply sediment to the coastal system.
• Cliffs and wave-cut platforms form where waves erode a notch at the cliff base, the overhang collapses, and repeated cliff retreat leaves a gently sloping rock platform.
• Caves, arches, stacks and stumps form when waves exploit weaknesses in headlands, widening cracks into caves, cutting through arches, and causing roof collapse to isolate stacks.
• Depositional landforms such as beaches, spits, tombolos, offshore bars, barrier beaches, barrier islands and sand dunes form where sediment supply is high and wave energy falls.
• Mudflats and saltmarshes form in sheltered, low-energy coastal environments where fine sediment is deposited and vegetation traps more sediment through ecological succession.
• Eustatic sea-level change is a global change in sea level, isostatic sea-level change is caused by vertical land movement after loading or unloading, and tectonic sea-level change is caused by plate movement that raises or lowers land.

• Construct a coastal systems diagram by correctly labelling inputs, outputs, stores, transfers, energy sources and feedback loops.
• Classify coastal features and processes into system components, including sediment sources, sediment stores, sediment transfers and sediment outputs.
• Interpret maps, photographs, graphs and GIS layers to identify coastal landforms, sediment movement, geology, fetch, prevailing wind and management structures.
• Draw and annotate accurate process diagrams for constructive and destructive waves, longshore drift, cliff retreat, stack formation, spit formation, sand dune succession and saltmarsh succession.
• Explain coastal landform formation in a sequenced way, linking process, geology, energy, sediment supply and time.
• Analyse a sediment budget by identifying sediment inputs, transfers, stores and outputs, then predicting areas likely to experience erosion or deposition.
• Compare emergent and submergent coastlines by using located examples and explaining landforms such as raised beaches, marine platforms, rias, fjords and Dalmatian coasts.
• Evaluate coastal management strategies by weighing costs, benefits, sustainability, effects on natural processes and stakeholder values.
• Collect coastal field data accurately, such as beach profiles, wave frequency, wind direction, sediment size, evidence of longshore drift and management effectiveness.
• Use case-study evidence to assess how a coastal landscape creates risks and opportunities for people, and how resilience, mitigation and adaptation strategies respond to future change.