Background information:

2016-03-10 12:01:38 UTC

Location- Seaford is a coastal town in the county of East Sussex on the South coast of England. It lies East of Newhaven and Brighton and West of Eastbourne. It is also the largest town in the Lewes district.

Population size- 26,955
Population density is 3,480/sq mile

Facts/Figures-
Seaford lies near Surford head.
Its is roughly equidistant from the mouths of the River Ouse and Cuckmere.
Previously had good beaches which were nutured by longshore drift moving from West to East according to the prevailing wind.
In the 20th century Newhaven harbour breakwater was erected and regularly dredged, this therefore cut of the sand supply.
By the 1980s the beach had deteriorated

Exemplar Anwser

2016-03-10 12:09:30 UTC

Describe and justify the primary and secondary sources you used to investigate and evaluate the success of coastal defences along a small stretch of coastline:

Our chosen seaside coastal stretch is Seaford. We have chosen this due to the fact that since the implementation of the Newhaven Harbour breakwater in the early 20th century the beaches along the stretch of coast have experienced rapid deterioration in size by 1980s. Seaford is the largest town in the Lewes district, it is located on the South Coast of England in the county of East Sussex.

Our fist primary source of evaluating the success of coastal defences along the Seaford coastline would be to construct and apply a face to face questionnaire system. This is where we will ask people who live in the vicinity of the coastline. This method will provide us with a valuable insight to how the coast has developed in the eyes of long term residents, therefore from this we can infer the scale and severity of coastal erosion. Furthermore residents can tell us if they have noticed a decline in the rate of erosion since the implementation of coastal defences. It will also be interesting to see wether or not residents feel safer now they have more coastal defences and their opinions of them.

In continuation we have also decided to compare old a new pictures of the coastline, this secondary research was decided upon because we feel as though it will allow us to visually analyse changes in the typography of the coastline as well as the amount of coastal defences that have been there in the past and that are there now. This will tell us if the addition of more coastal defences has had a positive effect in the replenishment of the coastline.

Our penultimate source of data would be to partake in an environmental quality survey of the coastline. This will be in order to view weher or not the application of more coastal defences has benefited the natural habitat. The way we would tell woulkd be by seeing if any delicate natural habitats have developed on the coastline. By the development of delicate habitats we can tell that the rate of erosion has declined and there is time for such development to flourish.

Our final secondary source is census data. This has been chosen to see if their has been any changes in the economy of the area and the population. For instance the addition of coastal defences in the area will provide an economic gain, e.g house prices may rise due to the reduced rate of erosion and tourism will be increased in the area because of the build up of beaches. Secondly an increase in population would infer that more epeople have moved into the area due to the improvement of the coastline. Census data would be compared from prior to the massive beach replenishment that took place in 1987 and present day data.

In conclusion we will use a combination of primary and secondary data collection stratagies in order to dertimine wether or not the implication of new coastal defences on the coast of Seaford were affective at benefitiing the town and the environment in the area

Sea defences

2016-03-10 12:15:17 UTC

Sea defences at

2016-03-10 12:15:18 UTC

Sea defences at seaford

2016-03-10 12:15:21 UTC

Groynes (Wooden)
Rock Armour
Beaches
Wave cut platform
Headlands (Strong Rock)
Bays (Weak Rock)

Fieldwork undertaken

2016-03-10 12:28:24 UTC

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milde_therapie — 2016-03-10 12:37:47 UTC

sketch map