GCSE-readyCoasts: human activity, recession and flood risk
People change coasts, and changing coasts threaten people. This lesson looks at how human activity affects the coast, and why erosion and flooding risks are growing.
How people affect coasts
Industry: ports, power stations and gas terminals, such as the gas terminal at Easington on the Holderness coast, need protecting, so defences are built.
Agriculture: low-lying coastal farmland is often drained and defended against the sea.
Coastal management: defences in one place can starve beaches further along the coast of sediment, so erosion increases there.
Coastal recession
The Holderness coast retreats by around 2 metres a year on average, one of the fastest rates in Europe, because of its soft boulder clay cliffs.
Impacts on people: homes, farmland, roads and caravan sites fall into the sea; property loses value and can become impossible to insure.
Impacts on the environment: habitats are lost, but eroded sediment also feeds beaches and spits further along the coast.
Flood risk and climate change
Climate change increases the risk: global sea level rose by about 20 cm between 1901 and 2018, and storms may become more intense.
Rising seas and hard defences can cause coastal squeeze: salt marshes have nowhere to move inland, so they shrink.
Rising risk forces hard choices about which places to defend, set out in Shoreline Management Plans.
Explain why the risk of coastal flooding in the UK is likely to increase.
- Sea level is rising because of climate change (about 20 cm globally since 1901).
- Higher seas mean storm surges and high tides reach further inland.
- Storms may become more intense, and coastal squeeze removes natural defences such as salt marshes.
Answer: Rising sea levels and possibly stronger storms let surges reach further inland, while natural defences are being squeezed out.
Urbanisation, industry (e.g. Easington gas terminal), agriculture and defences all change coasts. Coastal recession: Holderness retreats about 2 m a year, destroying homes and land. Flood risk: storm surges (1953 killed 307 in England); sea level rose about 20 cm (1901 to 2018); coastal squeeze shrinks salt marshes.
- Urbanisation
- An increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas.
- Mass movement
- The downhill movement of rock or soil under gravity, such as sliding and slumping.
- Climate change
- A long-term change in the Earth's climate, especially the warming since about 1900 caused mainly by extra greenhouse gases.
All GCSE and International GCSE Geography A key terms and definitions →
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Why does garden watering on cliff tops increase slumping?
- It dries the cliff
- Extra water saturates the cliff
- It makes rock harder
- It builds a beach
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Answer: Extra water saturates the cliff
Saturated cliffs slump.
Which UK coast is one of the fastest-receding in Europe?
- The Cornish granite coast
- The Scottish Highlands coast
- The Welsh slate coast
- The Holderness coast
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Answer: The Holderness coast
Soft boulder clay erodes quickly.
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- Pearson Edexcel GCSE Geography A (1GA0) specification
- Pearson Edexcel International GCSE Geography A (4GE1) specification, topic Paper 1, Topic 2: 2.3b
- GOV.UK: Communities mark 70th anniversary of East Coast tidal surge
- IPCC AR6 WGI Summary for Policymakers
- Natural England: Holderness natural area profile
Checked by the GCSE-ready editorial team, 17 October 2026. Last updated 2 October 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we will fix it.
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