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Year 8 · Geography · Rivers and coasts · Lesson 3

Coastal processes and landforms

Coastal processes and landforms: waves, fetch, swash and backwash, headlands and bays, caves, arches, stacks and stumps, longshore drift and spits, with UK examples.

Whiteboard video lesson: Coastal processes and landforms

18-minute video lesson

Teaching, worked examples and 20 practice questions solved step by step.

Watch free for a month

What your child will learn

  • Compare constructive and destructive waves
  • Explain headlands and bays
  • Explain the crack–cave–arch–stack–stump sequence
  • Explain longshore drift
  • Explain how a spit forms

The method

  1. Conditions.
  2. Processes in order.
  3. Key words.
  4. Landform and example.

Key words: swash, backwash, fetch, headland, bay, stack, longshore drift.

Worked examples

The first three practice questions from the lesson, with every step.

Question 1

What is the swash?

  1. Step 1: Water rushing up the beach

Answer: Water moving up the beach

Question 2

What is the backwash?

  1. Step 1: Water flowing back down

Answer: Water flowing back down the beach

Question 3

Which waves build beaches?

  1. Step 1: Strong swash

Answer: Constructive waves