Study Guides

Unit Summary

This unit teaches pupils how physical and human processes shape our coastline. Pupils will also learn about the threats and challenges coastlines face in a warming world.

Lesson Summary

You will learn to describe how the UK's coastline is at risk from threats such as rising sea levels.

Key Notes

• The UK's coastline is at risk due to sea level rise as a result of climate change.
• Rising sea levels are speeding up rates of erosion, leading to the east coast of England eroding quickly.
• When cliffs erode quickly they put homes and buildings on top of the cliffs at risk of falling into the sea.
• Some parts of the UK's coastline are eroding at a rate of more than 2 metres a year.

Vocabulary To Learn

• global warming: Global warming is the increase in Earth's average temperature over a long period of time.
• climate change: Climate change is a large-scale and long-term change in the planet's climate, including weather patterns and average temperatures.
• sea level: Sea level is the average height reached by the sea or an ocean, mesaured between high tide and low tide.
• erosion: Erosion is the process of Earth's surface, e.g. rock or soil, being worn away and transported from its original site.
• risk: Risk means the possibility that something bad or unpleasant might happen to either the built or the natural environment.

Common Mistakes To Avoid

• That climate change causes global warming, or that climate change and global warming are the same thing.

3 Quick Questions (With Answers)

More Lessons In This Unit

• Coastal management Study Guide
• Depositional coastal landforms Study Guide
• Erosional coastal landforms Study Guide
• GIS: Visualising and Analysing coastal erosion Study Guide
• Processes shaping the coastline Study Guide
• Protecting the UK's coastline Study Guide
• The future of global coasts Study Guide
• The impacts of climate change on Tuvalu Study Guide
• The UK's coastline Study Guide
• Tuvalu: An island nation Study Guide
• Waves and tides Study Guide