IGCSE Geography / Coastal environments

Vegetation, people and sea-level change

Edexcel International GCSE Geography (4GE1), chapter 2: Coastal environments, specification point 2.1b. Part of the full course.

Read the revision notes · IGCSE Geography past papers

Coastal vegetation stabilises shorelines, while human activity can increase erosion or shift sediment along the coast. Changes in sea level also shape the coast, leaving different landforms when the sea rises or falls.

More lessons in Coastal environments

• Waves and coastal erosion
• Longshore drift and coastal deposition
• Weathering and mass movement on the coast
• Headlands, bays, cliffs and wave-cut platforms
• Caves, arches, stacks and stumps
• Beaches, spits and bars
• Geology and the shape of the coast
• Coastal ecosystems: coral reefs and mangroves
• Coastal ecosystems: sand dunes and salt marshes
• Inside one coastal ecosystem: the Sundarbans mangrove
• Coastal ecosystems under threat
• Case study: managing the mangrove
• Conflicts at the coast
• Why coasts flood
• Predicting and preventing coastal flooding
• Hard engineering at the coast
• Soft engineering and shoreline management plans
• Case study: coastal management in The Gambia
• Case study: coastal management in Sri Lanka
• Case study: coastal management in the UK
• Coastal fieldwork: collecting the data
• Coastal fieldwork: results, conclusions and evaluation