Physical landscapes in the UK

The UK has a range of diverse landscapes. You need an overview of the location of major upland and lowland areas and river systems.

The pattern is simpler than a list of names suggests: the uplands lie mainly in the north and west, and the lowlands mainly in the south and east. Upland areas are made of older, harder, more resistant rock; lowlands of younger, softer rock. The line between them runs roughly from the north east of England to the south west.

In this section you study UK physical landscapes and then two from Coastal landscapes, River landscapes and Glacial landscapes. Check which two your school teaches before revising — you only need two of the three that follow.

The coast is shaped by a number of physical processes.

Wave types and characteristics. Two types, and the difference between them explains whether a coast is built up or worn away:

• Constructive waves — low and long, with a strong swash and a weak backwash, so they carry more material up the beach than they take back. They build beaches up. • Destructive waves — tall and steep, breaking frequently, with a weak swash and a strong backwash, so they drag more material away than they bring. They erode the beach.

The test is which is stronger, swash or backwash — everything else follows.

Coastal processes:

Weathering — the breakdown of rock in place, without movement • Mechanical — freeze-thaw, where water enters a crack, freezes, expands and widens it • Chemical — where slightly acidic rainwater dissolves rock such as limestone

Mass movement — material moving downslope under gravity • Sliding — material moves down a straight slope surface as a block • Slumping — saturated material rotates as it moves, leaving a curved scar • Rock falls — fragments break off a cliff face and fall

Erosion — the wearing away of rock by the sea • Hydraulic power — the sheer force of water, and air compressed into cracks by waves • Abrasion — waves throwing sand and pebbles at the cliff, grinding it away • Attrition — rock fragments knocking against each other and becoming smaller and rounder

Transportation • Longshore drift — the movement of sediment along the coast

Deposition — sediment is deposited where waves lose energy: in sheltered bays, behind spits, and where the coastline changes direction, because slower-moving water can no longer carry its load.

Distinctive coastal landforms are the result of rock type, structure and physical processes.

How geological structure and rock type influence coastal forms. Where hard and soft rock meet the coast in alternating bands at right angles to the sea, the soft rock erodes faster and retreats into bays while the hard rock is left projecting as headlands — a discordant coastline. Where the bands run parallel to the coast, the outer band shelters the rock behind and the coastline stays straighter — a concordant coastline.

Characteristics and formation of landforms resulting from erosion:

• Headlands and bays — as above, from alternating hard and soft rock. • Cliffs and wave cut platforms — waves erode a notch at the base of the cliff between the high and low water marks; the notch deepens until the overhang collapses; the cliff retreats inland, leaving a gently sloping rocky platform exposed at low tide. • Caves, arches and stacks — waves attack a crack in a headland by hydraulic power and abrasion; the crack widens into a cave; the cave cuts right through the headland to form an arch; the arch is widened until the roof collapses, leaving an isolated pillar, a stack; the stack is undercut and collapses to leave a stump.

That sequence is one of the most reliably asked questions on the paper, and the marks are for the order and the named processes, not for the shapes.

Characteristics and formation of landforms resulting from deposition:

• Beaches — sediment deposited by constructive waves in sheltered areas. Sandy beaches are flat and wide; pebble beaches are steeper. • Sand dunes — sand blown up the beach by onshore wind is trapped by an obstacle, plants such as marram grass colonise it and their roots stabilise it, and successive ridges build up inland. • Spits — longshore drift carries sediment along the coast; where the coastline changes direction the sediment is deposited in the shallower water beyond, building a ridge out from the land. A change in wind direction curves the end, and the sheltered water behind becomes salt marsh. • Bars — where a spit grows right across a bay, joining two headlands and trapping a lagoon behind it.

You need an example of a section of coastline in the UK to identify its major landforms of erosion and deposition. Use the stretch of coast your school studied, and be ready to name specific landforms on it rather than describing landforms in general.

Different management strategies can be used to protect coastlines from the effects of physical processes. You need the costs and benefits of each:

You need an example of a coastal management scheme in the UK to show the reasons for management, the management strategy, and the resulting effects and conflicts. Use your school's scheme, and make sure you can say who disagreed with it and why — the word conflicts is in the specification, and an answer that describes only the engineering misses a third of it.

The specification names the *type* of case study, never the place — your school chose which. The worked example below is one in common use; if your school taught a different one, use theirs and keep the same structure, because the structure is what the marks are for.

The shape of river valleys changes as rivers flow downstream.

The long profile is the gradient of the river from source to mouth, seen from the side: steep in the upper course and flattening downstream. The cross profile is the shape of the valley across it, and it changes from a narrow V in the upper course to a wide, flat-floored valley in the lower course.

Fluvial processes:

Erosion • Hydraulic action — the force of water forcing air into cracks in the bank and bed • Abrasion — material carried by the river scraping against the bed and banks • Attrition — the load knocking together, becoming smaller and rounder downstream • Solution — slightly acidic water dissolving soluble rock • Vertical erosion — downwards, deepening the channel, dominant in the upper course • Lateral erosion — sideways, widening the valley, dominant in the middle and lower courses

Transportation • Traction — large boulders rolled along the bed • Saltation — pebbles bounced along the bed • Suspension — fine sediment carried within the water • Solution — dissolved minerals carried invisibly

Deposition — rivers deposit sediment when they lose energy: as the gradient decreases, as discharge falls in dry weather, on the inside of a meander, and where the river meets the sea.

Distinctive fluvial landforms result from different physical processes.

From erosion • Interlocking spurs — in the upper course the river lacks the power to erode sideways, so it winds around areas of resistant rock, which interlock like the teeth of a zip. • Waterfalls — where a band of hard rock lies over softer rock, the softer rock is eroded faster, undercutting the hard rock; a plunge pool is formed by hydraulic action and abrasion; the unsupported hard rock collapses and the waterfall retreats upstream. • Gorges — the steep-sided valley left behind as a waterfall retreats.

From erosion and deposition • Meanders — water flows fastest on the outside of a bend, eroding it laterally into a river cliff, while slower water on the inside deposits sediment as a slip-off slope. • Ox-bow lakes — continued erosion narrows the neck of a meander until, usually in a flood, the river cuts straight through; deposition then seals off the old bend, leaving a curved lake.

From deposition • Levées — during a flood the river slows as it leaves the channel and drops its heaviest load first, building natural embankments along the banks. • Flood plains — the wide flat valley floor built up by repeated flood deposits and widened by meanders migrating across it. • Estuaries — where the river meets the sea, the tide slows the water and fine silt is deposited, forming mudflats exposed at low tide.

You need an example of a river valley in the UK to identify its major landforms of erosion and deposition. Use your school's river, and be able to name landforms on it and say roughly where along the course each one is.

Different management strategies can be used to protect river landscapes from the effects of flooding.

How physical and human factors affect the flood risk:

• Precipitation — heavy or prolonged rain delivers water faster than the ground can absorb it. • Geology — impermeable rock forces water to run off the surface rather than soak in. • Relief — steep slopes carry water to the channel quickly. • Land use — urban surfaces are impermeable and drains carry water to rivers rapidly, while woodland intercepts rain and slows it.

The use of hydrographs to show the relationship between precipitation and discharge is how those factors are read off a graph.

You need an example of a flood management scheme in the UK to show why the scheme was required, the management strategy, and the social, economic and environmental issues. All three types of issue are named in the specification, so an answer covering only cost will not be complete.

Ice was a powerful force in shaping the physical landscape of the UK.

Maximum extent of ice cover across the UK during the last ice age: at its greatest, ice covered almost all of Scotland, Wales, Ireland and northern England, reaching roughly as far south as a line between the Bristol Channel and the Thames estuary. Southern England was not glaciated, which is why glacial landforms are found in the north and west — and why this section pairs naturally with the upland areas in 3.1.3.1.

Glacial processes:

• Freeze-thaw weathering — meltwater enters cracks in the rock, freezes overnight and expands, widening the crack until fragments break off. • Erosion by abrasion — rock frozen into the base of the glacier scrapes the bedrock like sandpaper, leaving scratches called striations. • Erosion by plucking — meltwater freezes onto the rock beneath, and as the glacier moves it pulls loose blocks away. • Movement and transportation by rotational slip — ice moving in a circular motion within a hollow, deepening it. • Movement by bulldozing — ice pushing loose material ahead of it as it advances. • Deposition — glaciers deposit sediment when they melt and no longer have the energy to carry it. Till is unsorted material dropped directly by the ice; outwash is material carried out and sorted by meltwater streams, so it is layered and gets finer with distance.

Characteristics and formation of landforms resulting from erosion:

• Corries — snow collects in a hollow on a north-facing slope, compacts into ice, and deepens the hollow by rotational slip and abrasion while plucking steepens the back wall. When the ice melts a rock lip is often left, trapping a small lake called a tarn. • Arêtes — a narrow, knife-edge ridge formed where two corries erode back towards each other. • Pyramidal peaks — a sharp peak formed where three or more corries erode back around the same mountain. • Truncated spurs — the blunt ends of former interlocking spurs, cut off by the glacier because ice is too powerful to wind around them. • Glacial troughs — the wide, steep-sided, flat-floored U-shaped valley left where a glacier has widened and deepened a former V-shaped river valley. • Ribbon lakes — long, narrow lakes on a trough floor, where the glacier eroded a softer band of rock more deeply. • Hanging valleys — smaller tributary valleys left high above the main trough, because the smaller tributary glacier eroded less deeply. Their streams now enter as waterfalls.

The first three are defined by their relationship to corries, so learn corries first and the other two follow.

Characteristics and formation of landforms resulting from transportation and deposition:

• Erratics — boulders carried a long way by ice and left on rock of a completely different type, which is how their origin is known. • Drumlins — smooth, elongated mounds of till, steeper and blunter at the end the ice came from and tapering downstream, formed as the ice reshaped material it had deposited. • Moraine — ridges of till, named by position: lateral along the sides of a glacier, medial down the middle where two glaciers merged, terminal across the furthest point the ice reached, and ground spread across the valley floor.

You need an example of an upland area in the UK affected by glaciation to identify its major landforms of erosion and deposition.

Glaciated upland areas provide opportunities for different economic activities, and management strategies can be used to reduce land use conflicts.

An overview of economic activities: • Tourism — walking, climbing and water sports in dramatic scenery • Farming — mainly hill sheep farming, since the soil is thin and the climate harsh • Forestry — conifer plantations on land unsuitable for crops • Quarrying — hard rock exposed by glaciation is valuable for construction

Conflicts between different land uses, and between development and conservation, arise because these activities want the same land for incompatible purposes. Quarrying scars the landscape that tourism depends on; forestry blocks views and changes habitats; walkers cross farmland and disturb livestock; and conservation bodies want to restrict all of them.

You need an example of a glaciated upland area in the UK used for tourism to show the attractions for tourists, the social, economic and environmental impacts of tourism, and strategies used to manage the impact of tourism.

The impacts to be ready for, whichever area you studied: traffic congestion and pressure on parking; footpath erosion on popular routes; litter and disturbance to wildlife; house prices pushed up by second homes so local people cannot afford to live there; and jobs that are seasonal and low paid — set against real income, employment and investment in local services.

Management strategies commonly include repairing and resurfacing footpaths, encouraging visitors onto less busy routes, park-and-ride schemes and public transport, restrictions on the noisiest water sports, and planning controls on new building.