How and why do the beaches vary at Barmston, Mappleton and Hornsea?

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How and why do the beaches vary at Barmston, Mappleton and Hornsea?

Introduction

The Holderness coast refers to a section of the East Coast from Flamborough Head to Spurn Point. The total distance of this coastline is 50 kilometres from the North to the South. The rocks in this area consist mainly of softer rocks, such as Glacial till, Chalk, Boulder Clay, Gravel and Sand. This is one of the factors that makes the Holderness coastline one of the fastest eroding coastlines in Britain. About 2 metres per year is lost into the sea.  

Along a 17km stretch of this coastline are 3 locations which interest me: the small settlement of Barmston, the coastal town of Hornsea and a small village called Mappleton - They have all been affected by the rapidly eroding coastline. At each of those places, sea defences are in place to a certain extent to help prevent specific areas from eroding. These have a great impact on the beaches and cliffs. Usually creating beaches to the North of the defences and speeding up the rate of erosion to the South of the defences. The reason for this is that the action of the waves is from a North Easterly direction towards the coast, the direction of sediment travels South to the spit, Spurn head.

Barmston, Mappleton and Hornsea are so varied due to many factors. I aim to investigate a number of factors about each of these areas.

  1. How and why do the beaches vary at Barmston, Mappleton and Hornsea?
  2. How do the sea defences affect the beach?
  3. What problems are caused due to management of the beach?

Hypothesis 

the varying beaches are caused by the materials in the cliffs near by, also what type of sea defences are in place will affect the beaches dramatically.

Location of the Holderness coast, Barmston, Mappleton and Hornsea

(needs to be horizontally rotated)

Bi-polar vision of Barmston, Mappleton and Hornsea [fig 1]

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The bi-polar vision of Barmston, Mappleton and Hornsea was recorded, when we went to the three locations during our fieldtrip, onto similarly formatted sheets.

Although it is not a factual source of data, this will provide me with valuable information with regards to the management of the beach, one of my main 3 questions.

Coastal Erosion rates [fig 4]

The posts at Barmston, Mappleton and Hornsea, were first setup in 1951 (with ...

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