booklet one

• systems approach: - help us understand physical and human world around us

  - understand how energy is transferred between system components and how they change
• coastal zones: - dynamic environments with distinctive landscapes formed by the interaction of wind, marine and terrestrial processes

  - important to human race, half of world's population live on coastal plains
• system: set of interrelated components working together towards a process
• flow / transfer: linkage between one store to another, involves movement of energy / mass
• input


  addition of matter / energy into a system
• output


  final product, the thing that's been created
• store / component: where energy / mass is stored / transformed
• coastal zones - littoral zone: - this is the boundary between land and sea

  - very dynamic zone meaning its constantly changing

  - different zones where specific conditions prevail, depend on factors eg. tides, waves, depth of sea and all relate to each other
• Backshore zone: - above high tide level

  - only affected by waves during exceptionally high tides and major storms
• Foreshore zone: - between the high water mark (hwm) and low water mark (lwm)

  - most important zone for marine processes in times that aren't influenced by storms
• Inshore zone: - between lwm and points where waves cease to have influence on the land beneath them
• offshore zone: - beyond points where waves cease impact upon seabed

  - activity is limited to deposition of sediments
• nearshore zone: - area extending seaward from hwm to where waves break

  - includes swash zone, surf zone and breaker zone
• open system: the coast is an open system as it receives inputs and outputs
• inputs: marine:

  waves, tides, storm surges

  atmospheric:

  weather/climate, climate change, solar energy

  land:

  rock type / structure, tectonic activity

  people:

  human activity, coastal management
• processes: - weathering

  - mass movement

  - erosion

  - transport

  - deposition
• outputs: - erosional landforms

  - depositional landforms

  - different types of coast
• positive feedback: - effects amplified and multiplied by subsequent / secondary effects
• negative feedback: - effects nullified (cancelled out) by subsequent / secondary effects
• dynamic equilibrium: - when there's a balance between inputs and outputs, this means that the stores stay the same