Coastal Environments
Coastal processes of erosion, transportation and deposition; erosional landforms such as caves, arches and stacks and depositional landforms such as beaches and spits; and coastal management.
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Where the land meets the sea
The coast is one of the most active places on Earth, because the sea is always at work on the land. Waves erode the coast, wearing it away; they transport the loosened material along the shore; and where they slow down they deposit it. These three processes, erosion, transportation and deposition, shape everything you see at the coast. Erosion carves headlands, caves, arches and stacks out of the rock. Deposition builds beaches and spits from the material the sea carries. Because the coast keeps changing, and because people live and work there, it is also managed, using built defences or by working with nature. This module covers the coastal processes, the landforms they create, and how coasts are managed.
Coastal words
Learn these terms before the processes are matched up. They name how the sea shapes the coast.
Match each coastal process to what it does
- hydraulic action
- abrasion
- attrition
- longshore drift
- deposition
- the force of water pushes air into cracks in the rock
- waves hurl rocks and pebbles at the cliff
- rocks knock together and become smaller and rounder
- moves material along the coast in a zigzag
- drops material when the waves lose energy
Erosion against deposition
Two opposite processes shape the coast, and the landforms tell you which one is winning on a stretch of shore.
How does a stack form?
How does a sea stack form along a coast?
- An arch collapses, leaving a pillar of rock standing
- Weak waves drop sand into a mound
- A river deposits mud at its mouth
- The tide simply goes out
Explain a landform step by step
Geography questions often ask you to explain how a landform is made, and the marks go to an answer that tells the story in order, naming the process at each step. Do not just name the landform; show the sequence. For a stack, for example: waves erode a crack in a headland, the crack widens into a cave, the cave is worn right through to make an arch, the top of the arch collapses to leave a stack, and the stack is slowly worn down to a stump. Name the process doing the work at each stage, such as hydraulic action or abrasion, and link each step to the next. A landform explained as an ordered sequence of processes always earns more than a landform merely described.
Pick the features of erosion
Select every landform that is made by coastal erosion.
- A headland
- A sea cave
- A stack
- A beach
- A spit
Order how a headland becomes a stack
Put the stages of a headland becoming a stack in order.
- Waves erode a crack in the headland
- The crack is widened into a cave
- The cave is worn through to form an arch
- The top of the arch collapses to leave a stack
- The stack is worn down into a stump
Complete the coastal facts
The sea wearing away the coast is _____. Moving material along the coast is _____. Dropping material when waves lose energy is _____. A ridge of sand extending from the coast is a _____.
Tap the two coastal landforms
Tap the TWO landforms that are found at the coast, not on a river.
- a spit
- an arch
- a meander
- a waterfall
A sculptor and the sea
Think of a sculptor working a block of stone. They do not hack at random; they work along the weak lines in the rock, and over long, patient hours a shape emerges. The sea is a sculptor too. Where a coast has softer rock, or a crack, the waves work at that weakness again and again, and given enough time a cave, an arch, a whole headland is shaped. Nothing much happens in a single storm; it is the repetition over years that carves the coast. So when you look at a dramatic coastline, read it as finished sculpture, and ask which weakness the sea found, and how long it has been working there.
The coasts run
Answer each one correctly to keep your lives. Choose the best answer.
Manage each stretch of coast
Read each situation and choose the best answer.
- A town wants to stop waves eroding the base of a cliff. Which is a hard-engineering defence?
- A beach is shrinking and a resort wants to keep it. Which soft-engineering method fits?
- A low-value stretch of farmland floods often. What might managed retreat mean here?
Build a coastal-landform sentence
Choose the word for each gap to explain how a stack forms.
Explain how the coast is shaped and managed
A friend thinks the coastline has always looked exactly as it does now. Using what you have learned, explain how the coast is shaped and how it is managed.
- Explain the main processes of coastal erosion
- Explain how transportation and deposition work
- Explain how an erosional landform such as a stack forms
- Explain the difference between erosional and depositional landforms
- Explain one hard and one soft way of managing the coast