Geography Course Work – Why Is North Norfolk Coastline Manged?

3 million people in the UK live near the coast, which makes it very important to protect the coast from erosion and flooding .It’s also a very popular tourist destination and if that got eroded or flood it would lose money for the economy. This is why the coast is managed to protect the coastline.

There 4 main coastal processes are erosion, weathering, deposition and longshore drift. Weathering happens when material is being worn away but doesn’t move anywhere. Erosion happens when material broken down and moved away. Whereas deposition happens when material is being added to an area. Then longshore drift happens when material transported along the coast. The UK coast line is a dynamic system, which means that is always changing.

Coastal erosion is a big problem in the UK because in the UK 28% of the coast is at risk of erosion, which mean there would be a loss in land and houses. The 4 main types of erosion that occurs are attrition, corrosion, hydraulic action and abrasion. Attrition occurs when particles throw against each other breaking them down into smaller fragments. Also corrosion occurs when there’s a chemical reaction between the water and the rocks. Hydraulic action occurs when the waves pound the coast and compress air into cracks causing rocks to break down. Then abrasion occurs when there’s a scraping away of particles against each other wearing them away. These four types of erosion affects the wearing away of land.

A Shoreline Management Plan is in a strategy is set out coastal defence for a specified length of coast taking account of natural coastal processes and human and other environmental influences. The aim is to provide the basis for sustainable coastal defence, to also reduce erosion from further loss of land and set objectives for the future management of the shoreline.

The government creates shoreline management. Shoreline management plans organise management of large stretches of coastline. There are four generic strategic coastal defence options – Do nothing – carry out no coastal defence activity except for safety measures. Hold the existing line – shoreline protected by sea walls. Advance the existing line – constructing new defences seaward. Retreat the existing line – constructing or maintaining coastal structures.

The shoreline is essential for the economy of the area in north Norfolk. It is used as a base for commercial and tourism. All these activities support the villages along the shoreline that provide a range of accommodation, shops, restaurants and other facilities.

Norfolk is in the east of England. It is in between the North Sea and the English Channel. The nearby towns and cities are……

Sheringham the north of north Norfolk and a nearby town is Cromer. Happisburgh and sea palling are on the east of north Norfolk. The towns are next to each other.

The three sites differ from each out for comparison because they have different SMP. Happisburgh is do nothing, Sea palling is

Figure1: This image shows bar charts showing the bipolar evaluation in all at these locations Sheringham, Happisburgh and sea paling. Sheringham has the longest bar chart meaning it has the biggest total bipolar evaluations score. Also Happisburgh has the lowest bar chart meaning it has the lowest total bipolar evaluation.

Figure 2: This image shows pie charts showing wave counts deciding whether its consecutive waves and destructive waves from the frequency with which waves strike the shore at these locations Sheringham, Happisburgh and sea paling. Happisburgh has the biggest circle which means it has destructive waves causing there to be more erosion.

The graph shows a rose diagram of the bipolar evaluation at Happisburgh. The general trend this graph shows is that cost, flooding, disturbance are scored quite high, however aesthetics, erosion and maintence are scored quite low.

The graph shows a rose diagram of the bipolar evaluation at sheringham. The general trend this graph shows is erosion, flooding, aesthetic, are scored highly where as cost was scored low. Cost is scored at -3 and flooding is scored at 5.

The graph shows a rose diagram of the bipolar evaluation at all sites. Aesthetics are scored highly at 5 on all three sites. Also cost is scored highly for only Sea Palling and Sheringham whereas Happisburgh is scored is low.

The graph is showing my bipolar evaluation of coastal defences at Sea Palling which is showing how effective the protection is. The erosion and flooding are high as they reach up to 4 .Also the aesthetics of the area at Sea Palling is very high reaching up to 5 .In addition, Sea Palling needs a bit of maintenance with just reaching up to 1 on my bipolar evaluation. However there it affects the natural coastal processes with -3 on my bipolar evaluation and the construction costs is very expensive so it reaches up to -4 and also it caused a minor disturbance which reached up to -1 according to my bipolar evaluation.

Land-use map of Seapalling
The main trend of this graph is there are mostly open space and residential area. There are 47 squares shaded in for open space and 21 squares for residential area. There are also 2 square for small hotels.

Landuse map of Sheringham

This graph shows landuse map of Sheringham. The general trend of this graph is there is variation of landuse categories. Most of the landuse map is residential and services. Open space has the least amount of squares with only 15 squares shaded. This also has 13 squares shaded for small hotels. In addition 16 squares are shaded for tourism-commercial.

Landuse map of Happisburgh

The main trend of this map is that there are only residential and open space land use categories. There are 52 squares shaded in for open space and 20 squares shaded in for residential.

Conclusion

From the bipolar evaluation total score bar graph Sheringham has the largest total, this means that Sheringham has the most effective sea defences. By having effective sea defences Sheringham would be less likely to erosion. Whereas Happisburgh has the lowest bipolar evaluation total because of its limited sea defences. This means that it is more likely to be vulnerable to sea defences.

From the wave count graph, I can conclude that because Happisburgh had less than 10 waves in a minute. The waves were destructive waves which mean Happisburgh is more vulnerable to erosion so Happisburgh should be managed to protect it from erosion and loss of land and rapid erosion of the cliffs at Happisburgh.

The graph showing the rose diagram of the bipolar evaluation at Happisburgh shows that has weak coastal management defences due to the fact that erosion has a low score, meaning that Happisburgh is vulnerable to erosion.

The graph showing the rose diagram of the bipolar evaluation at Sheringham shows that has expensive sea defences such as seawall, rock armour and both rock and timber groynes .Which means cost would be scored highly. As Sheringham has many coastal sea defences it would be less vulnerable to erosion which the village would be maintained for longer, which is why maintained is scored high.

The graph is showing my bipolar evaluation of coastal defences at Sea palling shows that

The graph showing the rose diagram of the bipolar evaluation at all sites shows that

The landuse map of Sheringham shows it has high value landuse due to the fact that it has many landuse for tourists which mean it’s a major tourist town. It has many tourist facilities such as entertainment, small hotels, etc.