Human activities can lead to changes in coastal landscapes which affect people and the environment — Edexcel GCSE Geography A
Verified courseTeaching note checked against the official specification.
Human activities can lead to changes in coastal landscapes which affect people and the environment explained
Human activities can lead to changes in coastal landscapes which affect people and the environment covers 2 specification points, including A.
Read the full explanation
How human activities (urbanisation,… and B. The advantages and disadvantages of…. Open a point below for its explanation and revision guidance.
a. How human activities (urbanisation, agriculture and industry) have affected landscapes and the effects of coastal recession and flooding on people and the environment.
Human activities change coastal landscapes in several ways. Urbanisation builds seawalls, promenades and houses on the shore, which can cut off sediment supply and fix the coastline. Agriculture drains and reclaims salt marsh and dunes for farmland, removing natural buffers. Industry dredges channels and extracts sand or shingle, and port structures can interrupt longshore drift, starving beaches elsewhere. Coastal recession is the landward retreat of the cliff or shoreline, and flooding occurs when storm surges or high tides overtop defences. Together these harm people through lost homes, farmland and transport routes, and harm the environment through habitat loss, saltwater intrusion and wildlife damage.
b. The advantages and disadvantages of different coastal defences used on the coastline of the UK (hard engineering, sea walls, groynes and rip rap and soft engineering, beach nourishment and managed retreat) and how they can lead to change in coastal landscapes.
Coastal defences are hard engineering, which resists waves with structures, or soft engineering, which works with natural processes. Hard options are sea walls, groynes and rip rap. Sea walls reflect wave energy but can scour the beach in front. Groynes trap longshore drift to build beaches, yet starve downdrift coasts. Rip rap, large rocks placed on a slope, absorbs energy cheaply but needs replacing. Soft options are beach nourishment, adding sand to widen beaches, which looks natural but must be repeated, and managed retreat, which lets land flood deliberately, creating habitat but losing property. For each method, weigh its advantages against its disadvantages, then explain the landscape change it causes.
Your focus
- Explain how urbanisation, agriculture and industry change coastal landscapes.
- Describe coastal recession and flooding and their causes.
- Identify effects of coastal change on people and on the environment.
Show all 6 objectives
- Classify each named coastal defence as hard or soft engineering.
- Describe one advantage and one disadvantage of each named defence.
- Explain one change to a coastal landscape caused by a named defence.
Human activities can lead to changes in coastal landscapes which affect people and the environment exam tips
Marking Points
- Explains that urbanisation, through seawalls, promenades and buildings, fixes the coastline and reduces natural sediment supply.
- Describes agriculture draining or reclaiming salt marsh and dunes, which removes natural coastal buffers.
- Describes industry dredging channels and extracting sand or shingle, and port structures disrupting longshore drift.
- Defines coastal recession as the landward retreat of a cliff or shoreline.
- Explains that flooding occurs when storm surges or high tides overtop coastal defences.
- Links these effects to people, such as lost homes, farmland and livelihoods, and to the environment, such as habitat loss and saltwater intrusion.
- Classifies hard engineering as structures that resist waves and soft engineering as methods that work with natural processes.
- Describes an advantage and a disadvantage of sea walls, groynes and rip rap, each linked to a specific change in the coastline.
- Explains how beach nourishment and managed retreat differ in method, cost and effect on the landscape.
- Explains how a defence in one place can shift erosion to a neighbouring stretch of coast through longshore drift.
Examiner Tips
- 💡Use the three named activities, urbanisation, agriculture and industry, as separate headings and give one landscape change for each.
- 💡Keep the effects on people and the effects on the environment in separate sentences so that both parts of the statement are covered.
- 💡Define coastal recession and flooding precisely in your opening sentence before explaining their effects.
- 💡Read every option before choosing, and eliminate any that place a method in the wrong hard or soft category.
- 💡Check whether an option pairs a named method with a feature that actually belongs to it.
- 💡Learn one advantage and one disadvantage for each method so you can recall them quickly under time pressure.
Common Mistakes
- Treats coastal recession as sea level rising across the whole coast; recession is the landward retreat of the cliff or shoreline.
- Lists human activities without linking each one to a specific landscape change; each activity must be tied to a named effect on the coast.
- Describes flooding only as property damage, omitting environmental effects such as saltwater intrusion and habitat loss.
- Attributes all coastal change to natural processes alone; seawalls, dredging and drainage can alter erosion and deposition.
- Classifies rip rap as soft engineering; rip rap is hard engineering because it uses placed rock to resist waves.
- Describes managed retreat as building new defences; managed retreat means allowing land to flood or erode deliberately.
- Gives advantages only and ignores disadvantages; state a cost or side-effect for each method alongside its benefit.