Quick questions on Managing landscape systems: human influence, engineering and sustainability - OCR A-Level Geography

Even before defences are built, human activity reshapes landscape systems. Dredging for navigation and aggregates removes sediment; dams trap river sediment that would otherwise feed the coast; land-use change alters runoff and slope stability; and the building of property at the coast raises the value at risk and so the pressure to defend. In glaciated and dryland systems the parallels hold: tourism infrastructure and resource extraction in cold environments, and overgrazing and irrigation in drylands, all alter the sediment and water budgets. Recognising management as an intervention in a system, rather than a list of structures, is what lifts an answer to the higher Levels.

Sustainability asks whether management can be maintained without unacceptable economic, social or environmental cost, now and for future generations. Climate change sharpens the question: sea-level rise and stronger storms raise the future cost and failure risk of hard defences, while shrinking the period over which they remain cost-effective. This tilts the long-run balance towards managed realignment and soft engineering, which adapt with the system, though they require honest engagement with the communities who bear the social cost. The most sustainable strategy is increasingly seen as integrated, cell-scale planning that combines selective defence of high-value assets with realignment elsewhere.

State one advantage and one disadvantage of beach nourishment. [2 marks]

Explain why climate change strengthens the case for managed realignment. [4 marks]