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Introduction

The coastline of the resort of Sitges is being effectively managed MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM 1290-005 Contents page 1. Title page 2. Contents page 3. Aim 4. Introduction 5. Method 6. Method 7. Data analysis 8. Data analysis 9. Data analysis 10. Data analysis 11. Data analysis 12. Conclusion 13. References The coastline of the resort of Sitges is being effectively managed I aim to investigate the following hypothesis 'the coastline of the resort of Sitges is being effectively managed'. The coastal resort of Sitges is located at the Mediterranean coast in Catalonia in the north east of Spain this can be seen in figure 1 below, 40km south of Barcelona, very popular with tourists throughout the summer months. It has great sandy and rocky beaches which stretch about 19km down the coastline. An issue has started to arise, many of the Catalan beaches are losing their sand, and this has been caused by the ferocity of the November storms. Figure 1 Sitges Expensive housing Hotels Beaches Figure2 Photograph of Sitges land use As can be seen in figure 2 shown above, Sitges is made up of mainly restaurants, hotels and expensive housing. It is the second most expensive place to live in Spain behind Madrid whilst having 4500 tourist beds1 (www.sitgestour.com 2008). Tourism is central to the economy and central to that are the beaches, so therefore the management of them is critical. In trying to find out my hypothesis I will answer the following questions > Is Sitges being managed and how is it being managed? ...read more.

Middle

From this you can see that the difference in pebble size along the beach is varied but this doesn't show much of a correlation to suggest that the pebble size gradually gets smaller or gradually bigger along the beach. This suggests that there isn't any longshore drift operating there. As we only did ten sites along the beach this could therefore not be statistically accurate. After consulting student t-tables I can conclude that my results are not statistically significant at any meaningful level of confidence. swash zone location rank pebble size rank d d^� 1 1 2.55 4 -3 9 2 2 2.51 5 -3 9 3 3 4.74 1 2 4 4 4 1.84 8 -4 16 5 5 1.69 9 -4 16 6 6 2.3 7 -1 1 7 7 2.75 2 5 25 8 8 2.49 6 2 4 9 9 1.27 10 -1 1 10 10 2.71 3 7 49 134 0.187879 Figure 5 Spearman's Rank storm beach location rank pebble size rank d d^� 1 1 6.59 1 0 0 2 2 5.84 3 -1 1 3 3 4.5 5 -2 4 4 4 3.32 10 -6 36 5 5 3.81 8 -3 9 6 6 4.3 6 0 0 7 7 4.17 7 0 0 8 8 3.59 9 -1 1 9 9 6.41 2 7 49 10 10 5.48 4 6 36 136 0.175758 In the figure6 shown below it illustrates the sizes of the pebbles in the swash zone and in the storm berm, at all 10 locations all the way down the coastline of Atl�ntida beach. ...read more.

Conclusion

As the size of the cut increases the weight of the top of the cliff becomes far greater and will eventually topple due to the surface water. This will continue to happen but as soon as the initial edge of the cliff has fallen it provides temporary protection for the cliff behind. Then the whole process starts over again. This is not being managed well enough as the car park is slowly eroding and some measures that could be put in place are that sea defences, as this will prevent the cut forming and maintain the strength of the cliff. This problem needs to start to be addressed before it causes damage to the local economy. Conclusion The hypothesis 'the coastline of the resort of Sitges is being effectively managed' cannot be answered fully on the whole of the coastline. As this investigation has shown parts of the coastline are being effectively managed and others are clearly not. The level of sediment to protect is a factor on the effectiveness of the defences in place. Some of the beaches are classed as beaches but you can barely fit anyone on it, so they still need protecting i.e. the promenade. Other beaches had a far greater amount of sediment so the need for the protection of it is vital for tourism especially; as Sitges' main income is from tourism. There is a strong indication that longshore drift is happening and going from an east to a west direction. Some of the defences in place may need to be adapted to prevent sediment being removed and transported. So the main parts that need to be protected are being protected but could improve to prevent increased lack of sediment. ...read more.

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