UK Physical Landscape

Physcial Geographical Features

• The UK has a diverse landscape, shaped by different environmental and physical processes over millions of years. The features can be broadly divided into mountainous areas, lowlands, and coastal regions.

Rocks and the UK Landscape

• The type and age of rocks in a location plays a significant role in shaping the land's physical features.
• The UK's geology is composed of a wide variety of rock types, including igneous rock (such as granite), metaorphic rock (like slate), and sedimentary rock (like limestone).
• Each rock has a different level of resistance to weathering and erosion, thus affecting the landscape differently.

Landscape Processes: Physical

• Physical processes such as weathering, erosion, transportation, and deposition greatly influence the UK's landscape.
• Weathering involves the breakdown or decay of rocks, while erosion refers to the wearing away and removal of material.
• Transportation is the movement of material from one place to another, and deposition is the laying down or settling of eroded material.

Landscape Processes: Human

• Human activities such as agriculture, industry, and urbanisation also have a significant impact on the landscape.
• Constructive human processes can create physical infrastructure such as roads and buildings.
• Negative human impact can lead to deforestation, pollution, and a loss of biodiversity.

Coastal Weathering and Erosion

• The coastlines of the UK are continually changing due to weathering and erosion caused by the sea.
• Mechanical weathering (e.g., freeze-thaw), chemical weathering (e.g., solution) and biological weathering (e.g., root action) all contribute in shaping the coastal landscape.

Coastal Landforms Caused by Erosion

• The coastal erosion process can form distinctive landforms such as cliffs, wave-cut platforms, and caves.

Coastal Landforms Caused by Deposition

• Deposition is when the sea drops or slows down suspended particles to form landforms.
• These include beaches, sand dunes, spits and bars.

Identifying Coastal Landforms

• The ability to identify different coastal landforms and understand the processes that formed them is essential.
• Landforms formed by erosion include headlands, bays, caves, arches, stacks, and stumps.

Human Activity at the Coast

• Human activities at the coast include settling, fishing, recreation, industry, and transport.

Coastal Flooding

• The danger of coastal flooding is heightened due to global warming and associated sea level rise.

Coastal Management

• Strategies for coastal management include hard engineering (such as sea walls and groynes) and soft engineering (like beach nourishment and dune regeneration).

River Landscapes

• Rivers reshape landscapes over thousands of years, creating features such as valleys, meanders, and oxbow lakes.

River Processes

• River processes include erosion (including abrasion, attrition, hydraulic action, and solution), transportation (traction, saltation, suspension, and solution), and deposition.

River Landforms - Erosion

• Erosion by rivers creates landforms such as waterfalls, gorge, interlocking spurs, and pools and riffles.

River Landforms- Deposition

• When a river's energy decreases, it deposits the material it's carrying which leads to the formation of landforms like levees, flood plains, and deltas.