Barton on sea coursework - applied undestanding

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APPLIED UNDERSTANDING

  For my year 11 geography coursework I am going to be studying coasts. My title as well as hypothesis is ‘The coastal management techniques involved at Barton on Sea have proved ineffective’. The beach at Barton is full of big boulders which are imported from Norway. Barton is in Hampshire. Along the coast is Bournemouth, the beaches are nice and have good sea defences, but by protecting Bournemouth it’s stopping the process of longshore drift and this is why Barton doesn’t have much sand and shingle on it’s beach. You can’t protect a coast without interfering with another.

  I am going to see if my results will support my hypothesis. I am going to explore the physical features of the coast and how natural processes and human use affect those features. I am going to focus on the coastal management techniques used to maintain the coastline and also to explain the physical features of beaches and cliffs.

  Later on in my essay I will be comparing Barton with another coastal location suffering erosion.

THE THEORY COASTS – COASTAL PROCESSES AND LAND FORMS

 A coast is where the land meets the sea and the coast is eroded by destructive waves. These waves shape the cliffs as we see them now.  

 Waves sometimes result in submarine earth movements, but are usually formed by the wind blowing over the sea. The fetch is the distance of open water which the wind can blow to create waves. The greater the fetch the more power the waves have when they hit the coast. In the south-west of England the fetch stretches for several kilometres, all the way to South America, Brazil. This combines with the south-westerly prevailing winds to cause serious coastal erosion along Barton’s coast. The wind duration is the length that the wind is blowing. The distance that the wind travels depends on the wind duration and the strength of the wind. If the wind is strong and it’s blowing for a long time the wave will travel longer and will cause violent waves.

  There are two types of waves, constructive and destructive. The distance of the wave, the fetch, comes from Brazil so if the wind is strong and the wind duration is long it has to come all the way to Barton so it has lots of time to build and can cause vicious destructive waves.

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DESTRUCTIVE WAVES

Destructive waves have three main features:

  1. They are high in proportion to their length.
  2. The backwash is much stronger than the swash so that rocks, pebbles and sand are carried back out to sea.
  3. They are frequent waves, braking at an average rate of between eleven and fifteen per minute.

CONSTRUCTIVE WAVES

Constructive waves have three main features:

  1. They are long in relation to their height.
  2. They break gently on the beach, so that the carrying the materials up the beach ...

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