Coastal Landscapes and Change | Edexcel A-Level Geography (9GE0)

Coastal Landscapes and Change

326 questions
24 subtopics
Paper 1: one landscape system of two
Paper 1 and Paper 3

Covers the coast as a system: the geology and waves that shape it, the landforms erosion and deposition produce, sediment cells, sea level change, and how flooding and erosion are managed..

It covers the littoral zone and the influences that shape it, concordant and discordant coasts, and geological structure, coastal types and the influence of rock structure, faulting, folding and geological weaknesses, rock type, permeability and cliff profiles, psammosere succession on sand dunes, halosere succession and rates of recession, waves, beach profiles and marine erosion, wave-cut notches, platforms and cliffs, caves, arches, stacks and stumps, longshore drift and the transport of sediment, spits, bars, tombolos and other depositional landforms, sediment cells: sources, transfers and sinks, weathering on the coast, mass movement and its landforms, rapid coastal recession and variations in its rate, causes of sea level change, and emergent coastlines, submergent coastlines and contemporary sea level rise, coastal flooding as a significant and increasing risk, losses from coastal recession, and environmental refugees, hard and soft engineering on the coast, integrated coastal zone management and shoreline policies, how coastal management decisions are made, and by whom and using GIS, photographs and crowd-sourced data in coastal management.

Sample questions from Coastal Landscapes and Change

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

The littoral zone and the influences that shape it

How can changes in sea level be used as a longer-term criterion for classifying coasts?

Show the answer
Coasts can be classified as emergent (where land has risen or sea level fallen, exposing former seabed) or submergent (where land has subsided or sea level risen, flooding former land).
Faulting, folding and geological weaknesses

What processes and geological weaknesses lead to cave formation at the coast?

Show the answer
Caves form when waves exploit weaknesses such as joints, faults or bedding planes through hydraulic action and abrasion.
Halosere succession and rates of recession

How does the upper marsh differ from lower zones in halosere succession?

Show the answer
The upper marsh is only flooded by the highest tides, allowing less salt-tolerant species to colonise as salinity decreases.
Caves, arches, stacks and stumps

Define a cave in the context of coastal erosion.

Show the answer
A cave is a hollow eroded into a cliff face where waves exploit a line of weakness such as a joint, fault or softer rock.
Sediment cells: sources, transfers and sinks

Give four examples of sediment sources in a coastal system.

Show the answer
Cliff erosion, river input, offshore sediment, and biological material.
Rapid coastal recession and variations in its rate

How did dredging lead to the loss of Hallsands in Devon?

Show the answer
Around 650,000 tonnes of shingle were dredged offshore between 1897 and 1902 to build Devonport Dockyard; the beach dropped, and most of the village was destroyed by storms in 1917.
Coastal flooding as a significant and increasing risk

Identify four factors that combine to make Bangladesh highly vulnerable to coastal flooding.

Show the answer
Low-lying deltaic topography, land subsidence, deforestation of mangroves, and exposure to tropical cyclones combined with global sea level rise.
Integrated coastal zone management and shoreline policies

Define 'Strategic Realignment' as a Shoreline Management Policy decision.

Show the answer
Allowing the coastline to move naturally by removing or breaching existing defences, often to create new intertidal habitats while relocating the line of defence inland.

The 24 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
The littoral zone and the influences that shape it	The backshore, nearshore and offshore zones of the littoral, geology and sea level change as longer-term influences and river inputs, wave energy and tidal range as shorter-term ones, rocky coasts in high-energy and coastal plains in low-energy environments, and wave-dominated against tide-dominated coasts.	17
Concordant and discordant coasts, and geological structure	Concordant and discordant coasts, Dalmatian and Haff coasts, differential erosion forming headlands and bays, how bedding planes, joints, dip, faulting and folding shape cliffs and caves, the Glamorgan Heritage Coast as an example, and using GIS to map coastal landscapes.	18
Coastal types and the influence of rock structure	Recall questions on bedding planes, joints and dip, and the cliff profiles each produces.	14
Faulting, folding and geological weaknesses	Recall questions on how faults and folds shape a coastline and where erosion concentrates.	8
Rock type, permeability and cliff profiles	Recall questions on igneous, metamorphic and unconsolidated material, and on how resistance and permeability shape a cliff.	13
Psammosere succession on sand dunes	How vegetation stabilises sandy coasts, psammosere succession through embryo, fore, yellow and grey dunes, dune slacks and the climax community, drawing and reading kite diagrams from transect data, and marram grass and other pioneer species.	13
Halosere succession and rates of recession	Recall questions on the salt marsh zones and their pioneer species, and on calculating rates of coastal recession.	12
Waves, beach profiles and marine erosion	Constructive and destructive waves with their swash, backwash, beach gradient and sediment sorting, how tides, seasons and storms change beach profiles, hydraulic action, corrosion, abrasion and attrition, how wave type and lithology affect erosion, and classifying waves by frequency using measures of central tendency.	20
Wave-cut notches, platforms and cliffs	Recall questions on how undercutting produces a notch, a retreating cliff and a wave-cut platform.	9
Caves, arches, stacks and stumps	The cave, arch, stack and stump sequence by which a headland is eroded, how waves exploit joints and faults, and how each of the four landforms forms and is defined.	10
Longshore drift and the transport of sediment	Recall questions on swash, backwash and the angle of wave attack, and on tides and currents.	9
Spits, bars, tombolos and other depositional landforms	Recall questions on recurved and double spits, offshore and barrier bars, tombolos and cuspate forelands.	8
Sediment cells: sources, transfers and sinks	Sediment cells and their sources, transfers and sinks, dynamic equilibrium with negative and positive feedback, Portland Bill to Selsey Bill as an example cell, and fieldwork statistics including the Student t-test for pebble size, the Chi-square test for succession zones and an index of diversity.	19
Weathering on the coast	Recall questions on mechanical, chemical and biological weathering and how each speeds recession.	11
Mass movement and its landforms	Recall questions on blockfall, slumping and landslides, and on rotational scars, talus slopes and terraced profiles.	10
Rapid coastal recession and variations in its rate	Why some coasts retreat rapidly, Holderness, how dredging, coastal management elsewhere and dams speed recession at Hallsands, the Nile Delta and California, and how fetch, tides, seasons, storms and sea level rise change the rate.	15
Causes of sea level change, and emergent coastlines	Recall questions on eustatic and isostatic change, and on raised beaches and fossil cliffs.	11
Submergent coastlines and contemporary sea level rise	Recall questions on rias, fjords and Dalmatian coasts, and on the contemporary drivers of rising sea level.	11
Coastal flooding as a significant and increasing risk	Why low-lying and estuarine coasts are vulnerable to flooding, subsidence, freeboard and the loss of mangroves and salt marsh, Bangladesh and the Maldives as examples, how depressions and tropical cyclones generate storm surges and their short-term impacts, and how climate change raises sea level and storm intensity amid uncertainty that calls for mitigation and adaptation.	20
Losses from coastal recession, and environmental refugees	The economic and social losses from coastal recession, loss of amenity value, compensation and insurance, Holderness farmers and Happisburgh, and environmental refugees in Bangladesh, Tuvalu, Kiribati and Louisiana, including why the term is contested.	14
Hard and soft engineering on the coast	Sea walls, groynes, rip rap, revetments and offshore breakwaters with their drawbacks and the Mappleton example, then beach nourishment and the Sand Engine, cliff regrading and drainage, dune stabilisation, and why soft engineering is favoured as sea levels rise.	18
Integrated coastal zone management and shoreline policies	Recall questions on ICZM, and on no active intervention, strategic realignment, hold the line and advance the line.	17
How coastal management decisions are made, and by whom	How engineering feasibility, environmental sensitivity, land value and political and social reasons shape Shoreline Management Policy, cost-benefit analysis and environmental impact assessment, conflict between homeowners, local authorities and pressure groups, and winners and losers at places such as Happisburgh in Norfolk and Chattogram in Bangladesh.	15
Using GIS, photographs and crowd-sourced data in coastal management	Using GIS of coastal management cells for cost-benefit decisions on holding the line or strategic realignment, interpreting photographs of hard and soft engineering, and geo-located, crowd-sourced and big data for monitoring coastal change, with their limitations and ways to analyse them.	14

Coastal Landscapes and Change is 326 of the 3,433 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £7

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.