Suspension: fine sediment (silt, clay) is carried within the body of water.

Traction: Heavier sediment rolls along sea floor, pushed by waves and currents.

Solution: dissolved sediment (calcium carbonate) is carried in the water as a solution.

Swash pushes sediment obliquely up the beach and backwash returns it directly to the sea. This results in sediment slowly moving along the coast in the same direction as the waves approaching.

Recurved hooked spit: spit built out into a bay or across an estuary, end curves landward into shallower water.

Bar: sand or shingle beach extending across a coastal indentation with a lagoon behind.

Spit: sand or shingle beach ridge extending beyond a turn in coastline.

Tombolo: sand or shingle bar that attaches a former offshore island to the coast.

Bayhead beach: accumulation of sand at the head of a sheltered stretch of water between two hadlands.

Cuspate foreland: triangular area of shingle extending out from a shore line, possibly made by longshore drifts.

In each one there are sources where sediment is generated, which are stretches where sediment is moving along the coast by longshore drift and currents, and sinks, locations where the dominant process is deposition.

Chemical: involving a chemical reaction and decomposition.

Biological: actions of bacteria, plants and animals, which speed up mechanical or physical weathering.

Mechanical: rock breakdown by some form of physical force.

Rockfalls: where rock on a cliff is being undercut is weakened by weathering. Falls can be sudden.

Rotational slides: slow downslope movements of a mass of rock over a curved plane. Common where permeable overlies unstable impermeable rock.

Landslides: sudden downslope surges occurring when weathered rock and soil become saturated and lubricated by water.

Change in sea level can be brought about by a change either in land level (isostatic) or in the volume of the sea (eustatic).

Marine regression results from a eustatic (during glacial periods when water becomes locked up in ice and snow) fall in sea level and an isostatic (when ice sheets melt and the land rises) fall in sea level. Both movements expose the seabed and produce an emergent coast. See diagram:

Marine transgression results from a eustatic (end of glacial period) rise in sea level and an isotatic (when land sinks under the weight of accumulated snow and ice) rise in sea level. In both, large areas of land are submerged beneath the sea level, producing a submerging coast. See diagram:

Most scientists attribute rising levels to the impact of global warming. There are two components: thermal expansion of the oceans as they are warmed by change in climate; melting of ice sheets and glaciers increasing the water volume of the oceans.

Cliffs with structural weaknesses and vulnerable to weathering and mass movement.

River dams reducing the supply of sediment to the coast.

Rising sea level associated with global warming.

Human actions such as the removal of coastal vegetation, the building of coastal tourist resorts and the general pressure of population.

Economic costs: loss of property in the form of homes and businesses, the loss of transport lines, as well as the loss of farmland and other means of livelihood.

Social costs: impacts on people, i.e. the costs of relocation and community disruption, as well as the impact on health and well-being.

Environmental costs: the loss of coastal habitats and ecosystems.

Most at risk islands of rising sea levels are the Maldives, Tuvalu and Barbados. Land will simply have to be abandoned and left to disappear beneath the sea, creating a growing number of environmental refugees.

Rip-rap (rock armour): huge rock boulders piled up at the base of a sea wall.

Rock breakwaters: usually built of huge boulders, but offshore.

Revetments: stone, timber or interlocking concrete structures on dune faces and mud banks.

Groynes: vertical stone or timber fences built at 90 degrees to the coast and spaced along a beach.

Advantages: obvious to those at risk that something is being done to protect them; it can be a one-off action that protects for decades.

Disadvantages: construction and on-going maintenance costs are high; carefully designed engineering systems can fail; coastal ecosystems can be badly affected; defences can have adverse effects further along the coast.

Cliff stabilisation: planting vegetation through a tough, flexible membrane that holds soil and often rock in place; can also be done by regrading and reducing cliff slopes.

Dune stabilisation: dunes are effective but are easily degraded; they can be established by planting marram grass and by constructing relatively cheap dune fencing.

Beach nourishment: topping up beaches with sediment transported from elsewhere.

Follow the link for a diagram describing different types of sustainable coastal management:

It is a concept that has three main features. It recognises:
1) That the entire coastal zone needs to be managed, not just where erosion or flooding is taking place.
2) The importance of the coastal zone to people's livelihoods and well-being.
3) The need to make the management of the coast sustainable.

The IZCM is a joined-up approach to coastal management which must: plan long-term; involve all stakeholders and ensure they have a say in policy decisions; follow an 'adaptive' approach to unforseen changes; try to work with natural processes rather than against them.

The hard part is the decision-making process to decide actions to take. There are four different management options to follow in the UK: no active intervention; hold the line (build coastal defences); managed realignment (allowing change but in a controlled way); advance the line (build new coastal defences).

Pressure from local communities, developers and environmental groups.

Dissatisfaction will be rooted in the fact that local councils and governments have limited funds, so not all coastal areas can be protected.

Coastal managers are forced to prioritise which areas should be protected and which will have to be ignored.