This document discusses different techniques for coastal management, including both "hard" and "soft" engineering approaches. Hard engineering techniques use artificial structures like sea walls to control erosion, but they can interfere with coastal processes and problems can be transferred elsewhere. Soft engineering tries to fit with the natural environment and have lower maintenance costs, making them preferred currently. Specific techniques mentioned include sea walls, groynes, rip rap, and beach nourishment. Managed retreat is discussed as allowing land to return to the sea to create natural habitats, though it has costs and changes the coastal landscape. The objectives are to understand advantages and disadvantages of different coastal management techniques and how they affect the coastal environment.

1. How can humans manage the
coast?
Lesson Objectives:
1.To understand the advantages and disadvantages
of coastal management techniques.
2. How these different techniques lead to change in
the coastal landscape

2. What management techniques can
you see in this photo?

3. Coastal Management Techniques
Hard Engineering
These strategies involve
artificial structures to
control erosion (e.g. Sea wall)
They are often large scale,
expensive and unnatural.
They are not used so much
today as they interfere with
coastal process and often
transfer the problem (of
erosion) further down the
coast.
Soft Engineering
These approaches try to fit in
with the surrounding
environment and have lower
maintenance costs. They are
also more sustainable and
are often the preferred
method at the moment.

4. SEA WALL – hard or soft?

8. GROYNES – hard

11. RIP RAP (ROCK ARMOUR) –
hard or soft?

19. BEACH NOURISHMENT – Hard
or soft?

22. Managed Retreat – hard or soft?

25. Managed retreat
Before and after

27. Managed Retreat
• Advantages
1. Creates a natural
habitat for plants
and animals
2. Long term it is
working with
natural flooding and
erosion.
• Disadvantages
1. Productive
agricultural land is
given back to the
sea
2. Can be expensive
(£5 million for
Wallsea Island in
Essex)

28. Managed Retreat
• How has it changed the coastal
landscape?
1. It has given land back to the sea.
2. Created a larger buffer between sea
and land.
3. Salt marsh available for animals and
plants to colonise.

29. Your turn!
• You need to use p20-22 in the other
book to complete your handout.
• When you have finished, find the
correct picture of the management
technique and stick it in next to the
information you have written about.

30. Review
1. Sea Wall
2. Rip Rap
3. Groynes
4. Beach nourishment
5. Managed retreat

31. Extension draw the diagram
below into the box in the middle
of your sheet

32. Bingo

33. More Extension: exam question
• Why is economic cost only one of
several considerations when deciding
which coastal defence to adopt? (6)

34. Exam question
• Why is economic cost only one of several considerations
when deciding which coastal defence to adopt? (6)
• Other considerations include social (impacts on people)
environmental, processes (erosion or transportation) and
even political.
• Future impacts – difference between hard and soft
engineering approaches. Sustainability.
• 2 marks for one other consideration well explained. 4
Marks for 2 considerations well explained. 6 marks for
having 2 or more considerations well explained AND
including why economic costs are important too.
Learning Objective: How can the coast be managed?