Understanding natural systems is the key to successful management of coasts. To what extent do you agree with this view?

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Understanding natural systems is the key to successful management of coasts. To what extent do you agree with this view?

To manage a coast successfully, the effects of erosion, flooding and unwanted deposition must all be minimized as much as possible. Furthermore the protection of people and their property also forms a good basis of good coastal management. It is true that to be able to set up good defences, the natural systems surrounding the coast must be understood, as this ultimately allows the management agencies to fully examine and decide the type of management that should be used.

Coastal processes such as erosion and deposition are the main natural systems that affect our coast and thus must be monitored to ensure the best management strategy is in place. However the wave type and the amount of wave energy that is apparent at that stretch of coast ultimately decides the rate of erosion and deposition.

The energy input of a wave is due to the wave height; the distance between the crest and the trough, the wave period; the time taken for a wave to travel through one wave length, and the wave steepness; the ratio of the wave height and wave length. Furthermore, the fetch of the wave will also influence the amount of energy that a wave has and therefore a wave with a high-energy value will potentially cause more damage than a wave with a low energy value. Spatial variations may cause this trend to fail, but even so a wave with more energy will have more impact on the coastline.

Along the Kenyan coast, some small coral reefs can be found. These help to minimize wave energy and thus prevent rapid rates of erosion. However, due to tourism these are becoming destroyed and die, and as such cause more erosion on the coast of Kenya.

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The shape of the beach will also determine how damaging the effects of waves are. A steeply shelving beach creates higher and steeper waves than one with a gentle gradient. And therefore to protect this area, there must be management schemes in place, such as groynes, sea walls or gabions.

Beach width will affect the rate of cliff erosion as the wider the beach, the greater the loss of energy (waves take longer to pass over it) and as a result will cause less erosion on cliffs and coastal towns. Furthermore the amount of beach material present will ...

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This answer covers a lot of relevant information about the physical processes which need to be taken into account when planning coastal management. Some relevant examples are given. However, this is not exactly what the question demands. The best answers will refer more to the concept of systems. What are the inputs, outputs and processes? This is only hinted at in this answer. The answer would also benefit from having at least one substantial case study where the different natural and human factors are discussed at length.