Coastal Processes and Morphology Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Correct answer: 1 and 2 only

Statements 1 and 2 define morphodynamics: form and flow adjust to each other continuously, and a change in either produces a response in the other. Statement 3 is the assumption the whole field exists to reject - coastal morphology changes on timescales of hours to decades, well within the life of any engineering work, which is why a structure alters the very processes it was designed against.

Answer: D

Correct answer: hydrodynamics shaping morphology which then alters the hydrodynamics

The loop closes: waves and currents move sediment and so reshape the bed, and the reshaped bed then refracts, shoals and breaks the waves differently. Neither can be treated as fixed while the other is computed, which is what makes coastal prediction difficult - and what allows self-organised features such as beach cusps and rhythmic bars to emerge without any external pattern to impose them.

Answer: A

Both are true and the reason gives the feedback, and downdrift erosion beside a groyne field is the classic example. Predicting the response requires a morphodynamic rather than a static analysis. Feedback is what makes prediction difficult.

Answer: B

Correct answer: measurement of the atmospheric ozone column

The ozone column belongs to atmospheric chemistry and has no bearing on coastal morphology. The other three are the standard tools: repeated bathymetric survey to measure how the nearshore is changing, historical aerial photography to extend the shoreline record back decades, and numerical morphodynamic modelling to predict how the system will respond to a change.