‘The costs of extending sea defences at Walton-on-the-Naze are too high and the benefits are too small’.

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‘The Costs of Extending Sea Defences at Walton-on-the-Naze are too high and the Benefits are too small’

Introduction

Walton is the southeast of England; part of the town is situated on a headland called the 'Naze'.

To get to Walton we will go                                                                     across the Orwell Bridge and                                                                     along the A12, then we will                                                                      travel onto the A113 and                                                                          then go onto the B1033 and                                                                       then up to Walton. This                                                                             whole journey is fifty                                                                                  kilometres approximately.

There is map of Walton and                                                                    

the route to it on page 3

Walton has got a colourful                                                                        background:

  • The earliest human                                                                                 remains found at Walton are                                                                                              dated back to the Neolithic                                                                        period of 4,000 to 2,500 BC.                                                                     This was discovered when a                                                                     large village settlement was                                                                               found at the northern end of the Naze.
  • Romans were the next to inhabit the Naze.
  • After the Romans nothing much is known about the Naze until around 1527 when John Stone bought a farm about 1km from today’s shoreline.
  • In 1924 the Naze was bought and made into a golf course.
  • In 1939 the area was taken over by the armed forces, where the first British guided missile system was developed.
  • The forces left the Naze in 1947 and it become rough grazing
  • Finally in 1963 the Essex County Council and Tendring District Council as a public open space bought it.

There are many different reasons why people want to save the Naze, firstly, to lose the area would be bad financially, as the people who live there bring in money and pay taxes as do the businesses near the area. Secondly, the cliffs at the Naze are of geological significance, it is full of fossilised sharks teeth and wood. Thirdly a lot of migratory birds start and finish their journeys at the Naze. Some of these are often rare, such as Sanderlings, Oyster Catchers and Little Terns. There are also some very unusual plants growing on the Naze. Many of these plants, birds and fossils are threatened with extinction in Britain.

 

           

The cliffs at Walton are being eroded in mainly two ways, the first is slumping, described in the diagram above. The second is when hydraulic action (when the waves are crashing into the cliff) and abrasion (pebbles rocks etc. thrown at cliff), causes undercutting at the bottom of the cliff. This leaves the base of the cliffs unprotected so the cliffs collapse into the sea. In doing this coursework I am trying to prove or disprove the hypothesis, ‘the costs of extending sea defences at Walton–on-the-Naze are too high and the benefits are too small.

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Chapter 1

Coastal Defences at Walton

At present there are three main ways that are used to protect the beach, groynes, Rip-raps and breakwaters. All three of these stop Longshore Drift (LSD).

Longshore Drift on a Beach

A Groyne is a wall ...

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