A2 Geography Revision for Coastal Environments, subchapter 8.4 Sustainable Management of Coasts. It is suitable for Year 13 Geography, Cambridge Examination in November 2016. It contains: key terms and definitions, a topic summary, sketches and descriptions, additional work (6 questions for testing your knowledge) and some suggested websites.

1. A2GEOGRAPHYREVISION
COASTALENVIRONMENTS
8.4 SUSTAINABLE
MANAGEMENTOFCOASTS

2. KEYTERMSANDDEFINITIONS
Coastal protection refers to measures taken to prevent coastal erosion
and/or flooding. To reduce erosion, several different forms of coastal
protection are used. These can be divided into soft engineering and hard
engineering.
Gabion is a wire basket filled with rocks or stones used for stabilising slopes
and protecting the base of cliffs in areas of coastal erosion.
Groyne is a wooden or concrete barrier built at right-angles to a beach in
order to block the movement of material along the beach by longshore drift.
Groynes are usually successful in protecting individual beaches. However, as
they prevent beach material from being transported along the coast they can
starve beaches further down the coast of sand and shingle; hence these
beaches may be at increased risk of wave erosion.

4. KEYTERMSANDDEFINITIONS
Hard engineering is any form of coastal (or river) protection scheme that
involves altering the natural environment with concrete, stone, steel, metal
e.g. the use of seawalls, gabions, groynes or revetments.
Artificial structures are built in order to protect the natural environment
from erosion.
Managed retreat is allowing the coastline to retreat (erode) in certain areas,
i.e. letting nature take its course in areas where the population density or the
value of land is low.

6. KEYTERMSANDDEFINITIONS
Polder is land reclaimed from the sea, especially common in the Netherlands.
Revetment is a form of hard engineering in which the energy of the waves is
absorbed by wooden planks or reflected by concrete structures.
Sea defences are any form of measure, e.g. seawalls, rock armour, gabions
and revetments, which help control coastal erosion and / or flooding.
Soft engineering is any form of coastal (or river) protection that involves the
use of natural means, e.g. sand dunes, salt marshes, tree planting and / or
beach replenishment.

7. TOPICSUMMARY
Human pressures on coastal environments create the need for a variety of
coastal management strategies.
Shoreline management plans (SMPs) are designed to develop sustainable
coastal defence schemes.
Defence options include ‘do nothing’, maintain existing levels of coastal
defence, improve the coastal defence and allow the retreat of the coast in
selected areas.
Coastal defence covers protection against coastal erosion (coast
protection) and flooding by the sea.

9. TOPICSUMMARY
The function of a seawall is to prevent erosion and flooding.
Cross-shore structures such as groynes, breakwaters, piers and
strongpoints have been used for many decades.
‘Managed retreat’ allows nature to take its course – erosion in some areas,
deposition in others.
Along many parts of the USA’s eastern seaboard coast, seawalls have
protected buildings but not beaches.

10. TOPICSUMMARY
Three factors put the east coast of the USA at particularly high risk from
changing sea levels: first, the flat topography; second, rising sea levels; and
third, extensive coastal development.
Sand mining from Omaha beach, New Zealand, has been blamed for the
Omaha sand spit changing shape and eroding badly in the early 1970s,
before remedial groynes were built.
The Great Barrier Reef is now heavily managed. Before it was managed the
reef suffered from tourism, agriculture and recreational and commercial
fishing.

11. ADDITIONALWORK
1. Compare and contrast hard engineering measures with soft engineering
measures.
2. Explain why coastal areas need managing.
3. Evaluate attempts to protect the eastern seaboard of the USA.
4. Examine the impact of sand mining, as at Mangawhai–Pakiri, New
Zealand.
5. To what extent is it possible to manage the impacts of tourism in coastal
areas? Use located examples to support your answer.
6. Outline the main pressures affecting an area of coastline that you have
studied.
7. To what extent is it possible to manage coastal areas sustainably?

12. SUGGESTEDWEBSITES
www.unesco.org/csi/pub/source/ero9.htm for the protection of sand dunes
in the Caribbean.
www.aaas.org/international/africa/coralreefs/ch3.shtml for the protection
of coral reefs.
www.eurosion.org/shoreline/introduction.html for the Eurosion portal,
which deals with shoreline management plans for Europe (there are 60 case
studies on this site).
www.ncl.ac.uk/tcmweb/tcm/czmlinks.htm for links to a number of coastal
management organisations.
www.csiwisepractices.org/?read=72 for sustainable coastal development in
the Alexandria region of Egypt.