Coastal Systems and Landscapes

• Abrasion - A form of erosion where loose material ‘sandpapers’ the walls and floors of the river, cliff or glacier. Also known as attrition.
• Backshore -The upper beach closest to the land, including any cliffs or sand dunes. Beach Morphology - The surface shape of the beach.
• DEFRA’s 1:1 Cost-Benefit Analysis - The evaluation of a coastal town’s economic value compared to the cost of the management required. Costs are tangible and intangible and can be economic or other costs such as a visual impact.
• Discordant Coast - A coastline where bands of alternate geology run perpendicular to the shore.
• Coastal Recession - The retreat of a coastline due to erosion,sea-level rise or submergence. Concordant Coast - A coastline where bands of alternate geology run parallel to the coast.
• Corrasion - A form of erosion when breaking waves fling material (rocks, sediment, shells. etc) at a cliff face, physically knocking off material.
• Dynamic Equilibrium - Where a natural system tries to achieve a balance by making constant changes in response to a constantly changing system.
• Corrosion - The acid in seawater and some types of seaweed attacks particular rock minerals, causing erosion and weakening.
• Dalmatian Coast - A concordant coastline with several river valleys running perpendicular to the coast. They become flooded to produce parallel long islands and long inlets.
• Fetch - The distance the wave travels before it reaches the coastline. Distance to the nearest land mass in the direction in which the wave travels.
• Fjord - Long narrow inlet deeper in the middle section than at the mouth, created when sea levels rise relative to the land, flooding coastal glacial valleys.
• Foreshore - The lower part of the beach covered twice a day at high tide (the part of the beach that receives the most regular wave action).
• Geology - The structure and arrangement of a rock.
• Glacial Erosion - The removal of loose material by glacier ice, involving plucking, abrasion, crushing and basal meltwater. (necessary in the formation of Fjords).
• Grading - The layering of sediments based on their size.
• Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) - Large sections of coastline (often sediment cells) are managed with one integrated strategy and management occurs between different political boundaries.
• Impermeable - A rock that does not allow rainwater to pass through.
• Isostatic - A change in local coastline or land height relative to sea level.
• Low-energy Environment - A coast where wave action is predominantly small constructive waves, causing deposition and leading to beach accretion.
• Longshore Drift - The transportation of sediment along a beach. Longshore Drift is determined by the direction of the prevailing wind.
• Permeable - A rock that allows rainwater to pass through it.
• Mass Movement - The falling or movement of rock, often due to Gravity.
• Nearshore - The area before the shore where the wave steepness and breaks before they reach the shore and then reform before breaking on the beach. It extends from the low-tide zone and then out to sea.
• Ria - Narrow winding inlet which is deepest at the mouth, formed when sea levels rise causing coastal valleys to flood.
• Plant Succession - Change to a plant community due to growing conditions adapting (eg. sand dunes and salt marshes).
• Saltation - Smaller sediment bounces along the sea bed, being pushed by currents.The sediment is too heavy to be picked up by the flow of the water.
• Sediment Cell - Sections of the coast bordered by prominent headlands. Within these sections, the movement of sediment is almost contained and the flows of sediment should act in dynamic equilibrium.
• Subaerial Processes - The combination of mass movement and weathering that affects the coastal land above sea.
• Sediment Budget - Use data of inputs, outputs, stores and transfers to assess the gains and losses of sediment within a sediment cell.
• Submergent Coast - A coast that is sinking relative to the sea level of the time.
• Till - Deposits of angular rock fragments in a finer medium.
• Eustatic - Global changes to sea levels.