Coasts Unit
11 modules covering why do some waves build beaches while others take sand away? how waves, erosion and deposition shape coastlines, how people live with the coast and its hazards, and how coasts are managed. built for the 2027 cambridge igcse syllabus, with the east coast of peninsular malaysia, hแปi an and tubbataha
Your route through the unit.
Start anywhere โ M1 is the gentlest way in.Module 1
Waves
How the wind makes waves and what makes some bigger than others, what happens when a wave reaches the beach, the two types of wave that build or remove beaches, and how the monsoon changes the beaches of the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia from season to season.
Module 2
Coastal Processes
The four ways the sea erodes the coast, why some coasts erode faster than others, how the sea moves material and why it drops it in a sheltered bay, and how longshore drift carries sand and pebbles along a beach.
Module 3
Headlands, Bays and Coastline Types
Why some rocks resist the sea better than others, how the direction of the bands of rock makes a coastline discordant or concordant, how headlands and bays form and how waves bend around headlands, and how coves form, with the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset as the example.
Module 4
Cliffs, Caves, Arches, Stacks and Stumps
What a cliff is and how the type of rock shapes it, how waves cut a notch between the tides so the cliff retreats and leaves a wave-cut platform, and how a crack in a headland becomes a cave, an arch, a stack and then a stump, with Old Harry Rocks, the Twelve Apostles and Ko Tapu.
Module 5
Beaches, Spits, Bars and Sand Dunes
How the sea builds new land from sand and shingle: why sand and shingle beaches differ and the parts of a beach profile, how longshore drift builds a spit where the coast turns, how a bar or a tombolo joins land at both ends, and how the wind and pioneer plants build sand dunes that change inland, with Hurst Castle spit, Tanjung Rhu and Mลฉi Nรฉ.
Module 6
Living on the Coast
Why so many people live near the coast: the opportunities of ports and trade, tourism, fishing, flat land and energy, and their social, economic and environmental effects; the five coastal hazards of erosion, storm surges, tropical storms, tsunamis and sea-level rise; and why people stay, with Port Klang, Singapore and Langkawi.
Module 7
Managing Coastal Erosion and Flooding
How people protect a coast from erosion and flooding: hard engineering (sea walls, groynes, rock armour, gabions, revetments, offshore breakwaters), soft engineering (beach nourishment, dune management, mangrove planting, managed retreat), the four strategies, what makes a scheme sustainable, and who gains and who loses, with Holderness, Mappleton, Medmerry and Kelantan.
Module 8
Tropical Storms
Where and when tropical storms form, the conditions they need, how a storm grows and why it weakens over land, the eye, the four hazards and the storm surge, primary and secondary impacts, and how prediction, preparation, planning and protection reduce the impacts, with Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and Hurricane Katrina.
Module 9
DSE: Erosion and Storms on the Hแปi An Coast
The Hแปi An coast in central Vietnam: why Cแปญa ฤแบกi beach grew and then began to disappear (dams, sand mining, resort walls and typhoons), what erosion has done to people, how its management changed from sea walls and sandbags to an underwater breakwater and new sand, and how people there prepare for typhoons.
Module 10
Mangroves
Mangroves: where these coastal forests grow and why, how the trees survive salt, mud and the tides, why they matter to coasts, fish, the climate and people, what threatens them, and how Matang and Kilim in Malaysia use them without destroying them.
Module 11
DSE: Coral Reefs and Tubbataha
Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park in the Sulu Sea, Philippines: what coral is and the conditions it needs, where reefs grow and the three types of reef, why reefs matter to people, what harms them, from bleaching to blast fishing, and how a remote no-take park is protected and managed sustainably.