Coastal coursework

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  Introduction

The project is about how the northeast Norfolk coastline should be managed, the coastline is suffering badly from erosion, some places are worse than others and there are a lot of sea defences put up, some of this is due to global warming, with the seas rising it will put more pressure on the cliffs, the Yorkshire coast down to the north Suffolk is mainly bolder clay so it is wearing away extremely quickly and the coast is very low lying land the combination of the two could be disasters. On the coastline around Norfolk the long shore drift travels from north to south down the coast, this happens in all the coastlines in Norfolk it’s the same system around, not just little bits, the long shore drift carries different bits of materials to different beaches. There are a lot of different defences some are: sea walls, rip rap, gorgers, gabions, granite reefs.

Method

On the 23rd of May there was a school field trip organized and they visited the following locations: Overstrand, Mundesley, Happisburgh, sea palling and Winterton.

In order to carry out these investigations we had a variety of tasks. Observing the environment closely, we made notes, which included field sketches, and also took photos. The erosion occurring at each place, together with the soil type, land use, bolder clay and defences. Details of our findings are included later on in the project.

Long shore drift

First of all, we visited overstrand. The weather there was hot and blue skies. As a result, I was able to make many notes and also able to ask a questionnaire. We carried on down the coast to Mundesley. Here, we made quite a few questionnaires. Next we went down the Happisburgh, the weather was still fine. We then got to sea palling, there was a lot of people on the beach, so we got to ask some people, our last visit was Winterton, this was one of the worst places for erosion, big blocks of concrete had fallen of the cliff in the last year, and a café was near the edge of the beach.

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Theory

Erosion is changing the Norfolk coast line rapidly; there are many different types of erosion like, hydraulic action, abrasion and solution. The threat of tide and storm, and the response of natural

and engineered sea defences, will continue to influence

changes in the shape of the coast.

Corrasion is The bits of rock and sand in the river rub along the banks, wearing it down and knocking more particles into the water flow.

Hydraulic pressure: As a wave approaches a cliff air can become trapped between them, and find its way into joints. The ...

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