A Comparison Of Birling Gaps And Eastbourne's Coastline

Birling Gaps and Eastbourne's Coastline

My project is on Birling Gaps and Eastbourne's coastline. Their grid references are 553,960 (Birling Gap) and 630,003 (Eastbourne). These are both situated in the south east of England on the south east coast. The reason we are doing our work on these particular places is that these places have a recurring problem. Erosion.

!! BIRLING GAP !! & !! EASTBOURNE !!

Birling Gap and Eastbourne are both areas of coastline along the south east of England. We are focusing on these areas because they are areas, which the cliff-face is being eroded away. The erosion is happening at an incredible rate. This is because the cliff is made from chalk, which is a soft and

Photo of a wave cut platform and the lighthouse.

Task

Having completed my fieldwork, I am being asked to structure a report, which will attempt to challenge the hypotheses that state -

1. The pattern of beach material along the coastline reflects natural beach processes.

2. Destructive beach profiles are steeper in gradient than constructive beach profiles.

3. Some parts of the East Sussex coast are managed better than Birling Gap.

4. Coastal management decisions do not reflect the land use of the surroundings.

Method ======

At each location I needed to collect information such as the name, grid reference, draw a field sketch, write a site description and find out the issues concerning coastal management. I need to level the beach profile and find out the direction of long shore drift. Landscape evaluations, Bi-polar scales, field sketching and photographs were very useful for this bit. All the information collected will help me write an illustrated description of each area. This plus other evidence should enable me to be able to accept or challenge the hypothesis'

What processes operate like swash and backwash and long shore drift? And then I have to answer the question how are those processes linked to natural processes? And then find out and state whether it is true or false.

These 3 graphs (fig.1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6) are showing average rock size for Birling gap, rock type for both and rock size for both.

I also have some other graphs for beach profiles at birling gap and Eastbourne, long shore drift at Eastbourne and Birling Gap (fig 7,8 fig 9) these processes at Eastbourne do not compare (that much) to natural processes. Because if you look at figures 1 and 2 you will see that Birling Gap has a weak positive correlation and Eastbourne's results are all over that place with no correlation. This shows that the average rock size it completely different at Eastbourne because of the way the council always has to move the shingle around to help manage the beach properly.

Hypothesis 2

I found out that the gradient