Geography Revision

What evidence is there that weather in the UK is more extreme?

The Cumbria floods occured due to an increase in discharge and heavy rainfall, therefore causing social impacts such as a police officer dying due to a bridge collapsing and 1500 properties being damaged. Raw sewage was released into the river as a result of the flood and habitats were lost/damaged, therefore damaging the environment and its wildlife. Economic impacts involve the £300 million damage and the businesses having to close. 

Also, other evidence is the tempertature having increased by 1C in the past 100 years, heavier rainfall in winter and July and the forecasts now becoming more unpredictable.

Give two exampes of soft and hard engineering for the following:

a) rivers

b) coasts

Rivers

Dam construction is ugly and expensive, along with takes up a lot of land, however is long lasting and can produce a lot of renewable hydroelectric power which can provide for a vast amount of houses. Another method of hard engineering is a flood relief channel, which despite damaging pre-existing habitats and costing a lot of money, can also create new habitats and look more natural than dams. 

An example of soft engineering is river restoration, which by allowing a river to go back to its original course will take a long time and potentially flood certain areas of land, however will appear more natural and possibly create new habitats. Afforestation also prevents land from become too saturated, and depite taking a long time fro trees to grow and using a lot of land, this will contribute to preventing global warming (as plants take in CO2) and is cheap.

Coasts

Rock armour is not very visually appealing, however the rocks are hard and not easily eroded. This does however prevent some access to the beach, but can be walked upon. This method is also fairly cheap compared to the method of a sea wall. A sea wall is expensive and does prevent some access to the beach, however makes people feel safe and is…