Coasts as systems

• The coast as an open system includes inputs that start outside the system such as sediment carried by rivers.
• The coastal system includes outputs to other systems like eroded rock in the ocean.
• The coastal system also includes inputs like small streams that connect to the bay and outputs like carbonation occurring on the cliff.
• The coastal system includes major sediment cells in the UK where sediment, outputs, and transfers occur.
• The coastal system includes different components like cliffs, beaches, and dunes.
• During the quaternary glacial and interglacial period sea levels rose multiple times as a response to the global water cycle, effecting the precise location of coastal processes which form certain landforms.
• Recent changes in the global carbon cycle have also indirectly effected coasts causing more severe flooding and greater risk from storm surges.
• Forests act as carbon sinks which reduce carbon in the atmosphere and sea levels may lower due to less enhanced greenhouse effect, linking the carbon cycle and the coastal system.
• Waves drive over vast areas of the ocean transferring large amounts of energy into the coastal system, causing extreme erosion and significant transfers of sediment.
• Volcanic basalt is formed due to tectonic activity in Iceland and is transported by rivers, glaciers and the wind, evidence for multiple systems linking.
• Much of the landscape has been triggered by long-term changes in the water cycle, with the sea level having fallen resulting in coastal landforms to form like isolated stacks.
• Sediment is a key input in the processes of mass movement, weathering, erosion, deposition and transport.
• Sea level change is a key input in the processes of sediment, geology and energy from waves, wind tides and sea currents, people: human activities.
• Dissipation of wave energy occurs when waves break on the shore, causing sediment to be moved and deposited.
• Sediment is removed beyond local sediment cells when it is moved and deposited by waves.