To investigate the effects of coastal management, and to investigate the effects of longshore drift.

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Year 11 G.C.S.E Geography Coursework (Umar Sheikh 11GS)

Aim:  1. To investigate the effects of coastal management.

          2. To investigate the effects of longshore drift.

Introduction

This coursework is on the fieldtrip to Somerset, Nettlecombe to investigate the effects of coastal management and longshore drift.  Porlock Bay is in the south west of England just below Wales.  This course work is mainly on the coastal processes and management which deals with the protection of land from the sea.  As we went to Somerset we did field work to collect data on longshore drift to investigate its effects.  We explored longshore drift along the coastline of Porlock Bay in Somerset.  Coastal management is important in this area because of longshore drift.  Longshore drift is transport along the coast when waves move material across a beach; we will go over longshore drift in more detail later.  Longshore drift causes one part of a coastline to gain more of beach by deposition.  Deposition is the dumping of material.  Longshore drift is caused by waves.  In response to LSD they have built groynes, sea walls and boulder barriers which are all types of sea defence.  There is a lot of tourism in Somerset.  One place were there is a lot of tourism is in Lynmouth which went through a vicious flood.  There is a lot of agricultural in Somerset as it is not as modern as the city of London.         

                                                 

Background information

We went to Somerset to investigate the effects of Longshore drift one of the main factors of a Bay.  Its definition is as follows:

Longshore drift:  Transport along the coast is when waves move material across a beach.

Longshore drift is caused by the prevailing winds which cause the waves to break at an angle.  Swash carries the material at an angle and then the backwash carries it at a right angle to the beach.

 

A diagram showing a pebble moving across a beach by LSD.

A diagram showing how LSD moves material along the beach.

The material is moved according to the direction of the prevailing wind.  The prevailing winds move the waves.  The speed or the strength of the wave is called Fetch.  The waves have been made by the south westerly prevailing wind which obviously comes from the south west.  This wave is then refracted over to Somerset.  This diagram below will show you how it is refracted:

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There are 2 types of waves Destructive and Constructive.  Constructive waves are low energy waves. They deposit materials and build beaches.  Destructive waves are high energy waves. They have more power and can remove the sand from a beach very quickly. The most destructive waves occur during storms.  These waves erode in four ways:

These waves carry deposition which is then dumped on land by constructive waves.  This happens when the waves have less energy.  Groynes are made so deposition builds up against these wooden barriers which make the beach ...

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