The first part of this topic is an introduction to urbanisation and megacities. The first term focuses on Mumbai as a megacity - growth, challenges and opportunities. The second term focuses on London as a global city - growth, challenges and opportunities. A fieldwork will be based on this unit.
Students will be assessed with exam-style questions.
Brownfield site
Land that has been used, abandoned and now awaits some new use. Commonly found across urban areas, particularly in the inner city.
Dereliction
Abandoned buildings and wasteland.
Economic opportunities
Chances for people to improve their standard of living through employment.
Greenfield site
A plot of land, often in a rural or on the edge of an urban area that has not yet been subject to any building development.
Inequalities
Differences between poverty and wealth, as well as in peoples' wellbeing and access to things like jobs, housing and education. Inequalities may occur in housing provision, access to services, access to open land, safety and security.
Integrated transport systems
When different transport methods connect together, making journeys smoother and therefore public transport more appealing. Better integration should result in more demand for public transport and should see people switching from private car use.
Mega-cities
An urban area with a total population in excess of ten million people.
Migration
When people move from one area to another. In many LICS people move from rural to urban areas (rural-urban migration).
Natural increase
The birth rate minus the death rate of a population.
Pollution
The presence of chemicals, noise, dirt or other substances which have harmful or poisonous effects on an environment.
Rural-urban fringe
A zone of transition between the built-up area and the countryside, where there is often competition for land use. It is a zone of mixed land uses, from out of town shopping centres and golf courses to farmland and motorways.
Sanitation
Measures designed to protect public health, including the provision of clean water and the disposal of sewage and waste.
Social deprivation
The degree to which an individual or an area is deprived of services, decent housing, adequate income and local employment.
Social opportunities
Chances for people to improve their quality of life, for instance access to education and health care.
Squatter settlement
An area of poor-quality housing, lacking in amenities such as water supply, sewerage and electricity, which often develops spontaneously and illegally in a city in an LIC.
Sustainable urban living
A sustainable city is one in which there is minimal damage to the environment, the economic base is sound with resources allocated fairly and jobs secure, and there is a strong sense of community, with local people involved in decisions made.
Traffic congestion
Occurs when there is too great a volume of traffic for roads to cope with, so traffic jams form and traffic slows to a crawl.
Urban greening
The process of increasing and preserving open space such as public parks and gardens in urban areas.
Urbanisation
The process by which an increasing percentage of a country's population comes to live in towns and cities. Rapid urbanisation is a feature of many LICs and NEEs.
Urban regeneration
The revival of old parts of the built‐up area by either installing modern facilities in old buildings (known as renewal) or opting for redevelopment (ie demolishing existing buildings and starting afresh).
Urban sprawl
The unplanned growth of urban areas into the surrounding countryside.
Waste recycling
The process of extracting and reusing useful substances found in waste.
Develop the individual:
Appreciation of challenges faced by people around the world, fostering a culture of empathy by understanding global challenges.
Create a supportive community:
Working together to take responsibility for the impact of our choices on the world.
Students will focus on natural hazards both globally and in the UK. A range of case studies are looked at including earthquakes and volcanoes. The effect that these natural hazards have on people will be studied as well as responses to managing these hazards from all around the world.
Students will be assessed with exam-style questions.
Volcano
A mountain or hill, typically conical, having a crater or vent through which lava, rock fragments, hot vapour, and gas are or have been erupted from the earth's crust.
Earthquake
A sudden violent shaking of the ground, typically causing great destruction, as a result of movements within the earth's crust or volcanic action.
Hazard
A danger or risk to people, property, animals or the environment.
Economic
Effect of an event on the wealth of an area or community.
Social impacts
The effect of an event on the lives of people or community.
Constructive Plate Margin
Tectonic plate margin where rising magma adds new material to plates that are diverging or moving apart.
Destructive Plate Margin
Tectonic plate margin where two plates are converging and oceanic plate is subducted - there could be violent earthquakes and explosive volcanoes.
Conservative Plate Margin
Two plates sliding alongside each other, in the same or different directions.
Flooding
Where river discharge exceeds river channel capacity and water spills onto the floodplain.
Extreme Weather
When a weather event is significantly different from the average or usual weather pattern, and especially severe or nonseasonal.
Natural hazard
A natural event (for example an earthquake, volcanic eruption, tropical storm, flood) that threatens people or has the potential to cause damage, destruction and death.
Immediate responses
The reaction of people as the disaster happens and in the immediate aftermath.
Long-term responses
Later reactions that occur in the weeks, months and years after the event.
Monitoring
Recording physical changes, such as earthquake tremors around a volcano, to help forecast when and where a natural hazard might strike.
Plate margin
The margin or boundary between two tectonic plates.
Planning
Actions taken to enable communities to respond to, and recover from, natural disasters, through measures such as emergency evacuation plans, information management, communications and warning systems.
Prediction
Attempts to forecast when and where a natural hazard will strike, based on current knowledge. This can be done to some extent for volcanic eruptions (and tropical storms), but less reliably for earthquakes.
Primary effects
The initial impact of a natural event on people and property, caused directly by it, for instance the ground buildings collapsing following an earthquake.
Protection
Actions taken before a hazard strikes to reduce its impact, such as educating people or improving building design.
Secondary effects
The after-effects that occur as indirect impacts of a natural event, sometimes on a longer timescale, for instance fires due to ruptured gas mains resulting from the ground shaking.
Tectonic hazard
A natural hazard caused by movement of tectonic plates (including volcanoes and earthquakes).
Tectonic plate
A rigid segment of the Earth’s crust which can ‘float’ across the heavier, semimolten rock below. Continental plates are less dense, but thicker than oceanic plates.
Develop the individual:
Create a supportive community:
In this unit we will be focusing on both coastal and river landscapes in the UK. We will study the processes occuring in both of these landscapes as well as exploring the relationship that we have with these environments. Case studies will be used to solidify any topics covered. A fieldwork will be based around this unit.
This will be in the form of exam style questions.
Abrasion
Abrasion is a form of erosion caused by rubbing of fine particles against an object. The effect is much the same as using sandpaper. Water carries sediment (fine rock particles) that abrade the rocks.
Attrition
The wearing away of particles of rock as they bounce along or knock against each other and wear away becoming more rounded.
Deposition
Water (river, glacier or waves) lays down or drops the sediment or material that it is carrying such as sand, mud, and small stones or sticks. This often happens in areas of low energy, because the water is flowing slowly.
Erosion
The wearing away, in this case by water and rocks constantly breaking down the surrounding rock or soil.
Hydraulic Action
The force of the water wearing away the rock .
Longshore Drift
Longshore drift consists of the transportation of sediments (clay, silt, sand and shingle) along a coast at an angle to the shoreline, which is dependent on prevailing wind direction, swash and backwash.
Wavecut Platform
A landform of erosion found between the high and low water mark.
Freeze-thaw weathering
This occurs in cold climates when temperatures are often around freezing point and where exposed rocks contain many cracks. Water enters the cracks during the warmer day and freezes during the colder night, causing the cracks to widen.
Relief
This describes the physical features of a landscape. It includes: - height above sea level - steepness of slopes - the shape of landforms .
Mass movement
It is the downward movement (sliding) of weathered material and rock under the influence of gravity.
Landscape
An extensive area of land regarded as being visually and physically distinct.
Arch
A wave-eroded passage through a small headland. This begins as a cave formed in the headland, which is gradually widened and deepened until it cuts through.
Bar
Where a spit grows across a bay, a bay bar can eventually enclose the bay to create a lagoon. Bars can also form offshore due to the action of breaking waves.
Beach
The zone of deposited material that extends from the low water line to the limit of storm waves. The beach or shore can be divided in the foreshore and the backshore.
Beach nourishment
The addition of new material to a beach artificially, through the dumping of large amounts of sand or shingle.
Beach reprofiling
Changing the profile or shape of the beach. It usually refers to the direct transfer of material from the lower to the upper beach or, occasionally, the transfer of sand down the dune face from crest to toe.
Cave
A large hole in the cliff caused by waves forcing their way into cracks in the cliff face.
Chemical weathering
The decomposition (or rotting) of rock caused by a chemical change within that rock; sea water can cause chemical weathering of cliffs.
Cliff
A steep high rock face formed by weathering and erosion along the coastline.
Dune regeneration
Action taken to build up dunes and increase vegetation to strengthen the dunes and prevent excessive coastal retreat. This includes the re-planting of marram grass to stabilise the dunes, as well as planting trees and providing boardwalks.
Gabion
Steel wire mesh filled with boulders used in coastal defences.
Groyne
A wooden barrier built out into the sea to stop the longshore drift of sand and shingle, and so cause the beach to grow. It is used to build beaches to protect against cliff erosion and provide an important tourist amenity.
Hard engineering
The use of concrete and large artificial structures by civil engineers to defend land against natural erosion processes.
Headlands and bays
A rocky coastal promontory made of rock that is resistant to erosion; headlands lie between bays of less resistant rock where the land has been eroded back by the sea.
Managed retreat
Allowing cliff erosion to occur as nature taking its course: erosion in some areas, deposition in others. Benefits include less money spent and the creation of natural environments.
Mechanical weathering
Weathering processes that cause physical disintegration or break up of exposed rock without any change in the chemical composition of the rock, for instance freeze thaw.
Rock armour
Large boulders dumped on the beach as part of the coastal defences.
Sand dune
Coastal sand hill above the high tide mark, shaped by wind action, covered with grasses and shrubs.
Sliding
Occurs after periods of heavy rain when loose surface material becomes saturated and the extra weight causes the material to become unstable and move rapidly downhill, sometimes in an almost fluid state.
Sea wall
A concrete wall which aims to prevent erosion of the coast by providing a barrier which reflects wave energy.
Slumping
Rapid mass movement which involves a whole segment of the cliff moving down-slope along a saturated shear-plane or line of weakness.
Soft engineering
Managing erosion by working with natural processes to help restore beaches and coastal ecosystems.
Spit
A depositional landform formed when a finger of sediment extends from the shore out to sea, often at a river mouth. It usually has a curved end because of opposing winds and currents.
Stack
An isolated pillar of rock left when the top of an arch has collapsed. Over time further erosion reduces the stack to a smaller, lower stump.
Transportation
The movement of eroded material.
Waves
Ripples in the sea caused by the transfer of energy from the wind blowing over the surface of the sea. The largest waves are formed when winds are very strong, blow for lengthy periods and cross large expanses of water.
Cross profile
The side to side cross-section of a river channel and/or valley.
Dam and reservoir
A barrier (made on earth, concrete or stone) built across a valley to interrupt river flow and create a man‐made lake (reservoir) which stores water and controls the discharge of the river.
Discharge
The quantity of water that passes a given point on a stream or river‐bank within a given period of time.
Embankment
Raised banks constructed along the river; they effectively make the river deeper so it can hold more water. They are expensive and do not look natural but they do protect the land around them.
Estuary
The tidal mouth of a river where it meets the sea; wide banks of deposited mud are exposed at low tide.
Flood
Occurs when river discharge exceeds river channel capacity and water spills out of the channel onto the floodplain and other areas.
Flood plain
The relatively flat area forming the valley floor on either side of a river channel, which is sometimes flooded.
Flood plain zoning
This attempts to organise the flood defences in such a way that land that is near the river and often floods is not built on.
Flood relief channels
Building new artificial channels which are used when a river is close to maximum discharge. They take the pressure off the main channels when floods are likely, therefore reducing flood risk.
Flood risk
The predicted frequency of floods in an area.
Flood warning
Providing reliable advance information about possible flooding. Flood warning systems give people time to remove possessions and evacuate areas.
Fluvial processes
Processes relating to erosion, transport and deposition by a river.
Gorge
A narrow, steep sided valley, often formed as a waterfall retreats upstream.
Hydrograph
A graph which shows the discharge of a river, related to rainfall, over a period of time.
Interlocking spurs
A series of ridges projecting out on alternate sides of a valley and around which a river winds its course.
Lateral erosion
Sideways erosion by a river on the outside of a meander channel. It eventually leads to the widening of the valley and contributes to the formation of the flood plain.
Levees
Embankment of sediment along the bank of a river. It may be formed naturally by regular flooding or be built up by people to protect the area against flooding.
Long profile
The gradient of a river, from its source to its mouth.
Meander
A pronounced bend in a river.
Ox-bow lake
A pronounced bend in a river.
Precipitation
Moisture falling from the atmosphere - as rain, hail, sleet or snow.
Saltation
Particles bouncing down the river bed.
Solution
Soluble particles are dissolved into the river.
(Channel) straightening
Removing meanders from a river to make the river straighter. Straightening the river (also called channelising) allows it to carry more water quickly downstream, so it doesn’t build up and is less likely to flood.
Suspension
Fine solid material held in the water while the water is moving.
Traction
The rolling of boulders and pebbles along the river bed.
Vertical erosion
Downward erosion of a river bed.
Waterfall
Sudden descent of a river or stream over a vertical or very steep slope in its bed. It often forms where the river meets a band of softer rock after flowing over an area of more resistant material.
Develop the individual:
This unit will help pupils to develop an appreciation for the variety of landscapes within the UK, inspiring imagination and curiosity and enabling students to develop communication and teamwork skills.
Create a supportive community:
Students will develop an understanding of how decision making processes are taken within a community.