This film explores the causes and consequences of coastal flooding, focusing on case studies from the UK.
Coastal flooding can be a threat to towns, villages and cities around the shoreline of the United Kingdom.
Flooding sea water can cause serious damage to homes, businesses and agricultural land. In extreme cases, it can drive people from their homes and destroy wildlife habitats.
Climate change, extreme weather and the retreat of beaches due to erosion all mean an increased risk of coastal flooding.
Coastal flooding happens when storms and high winds push waves of sea water towards the coast. It is even worse when a storm coincides with the spring tide. This is when the gravitational pull of both the sun and the moon combine to create a high tide.
In December 2013, the United Kingdom was hit by the worst tidal surge in over fifty years. Gale force winds combined with the high spring tide and an area of low pressure. Thousands of people had to be evacuated from their homes and over a thousand homes were flooded. Two people were killed.
But, the deadliest kind of coastal flooding is when an earthquake shifts the seabed causing a huge tidal wave to form. This is called a tsunami.
One of the worst tsunamis ever recorded happened in the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day in 2004. It flooded the coastlines of fourteen countries, in some places reaching up to three kilometres inland, sweeping away homes and villages and killing more than two hundred thousand people.
Fortunately, because of its geographical situation, the United Kingdom is unlikely to be affected by a tsunami. But, coastal flooding here caused by high tides and climate change can be serious and can threaten lives and livelihoods.
Video summary
This short film, first published in 2020, is for teachers and review is recommended before use in class.
Download/print a transcript of the video.
This short film for secondary schools explores the causes and consequences of coastal flooding through UK case studies.
It examines at the impact of coastal flooding on communities and how patterns of flooding are changing over time.
It supports the requirements of National Curriculum physical geography at KS3 with regard to:
- geological timescales and plate tectonics
- rocks, weathering and soils
- weather and climate, including the change in climate from the Ice Age to the present
- and glaciation, hydrology and coasts.
Teacher Notes
This short film is an ideal tool to help students understand coastal flooding and its causes.
It can be used to prompt discussion about climate change and to get students to explore how climate change impacts on life in coastal communities.
It provides an opportunity for students to investigate whether or not there are links between climate change and coastal flooding, and to critically reflect on evidence presented as part of this investigation.
Points for discussion:
- What is flooding?
- What causes coastal flooding?
- What causes river flooding?
- How do humans respond to the risk of flooding?
- Are responses to coastal flooding different to responses to river flooding?
- Are patterns of flooding changing?
- Can we predict when flooding will happen?
Suggested activities:
After watching the film, students could develop case studies and do fieldwork to explore the impact of coastal flooding.
Students could explore the physical processes used to protect coastal communities from flooding and the impact such measures have on the community and the physical environment.
Using data, students could explore patterns and trends of flooding, both coastal and river, and determine if flooding is becoming more or less common.
Following this, students could develop arguments for and against various protection measures and critically reflect on these.
This short film is relevant for teaching geography at KS3 in England and Northern Ireland, 3rd and 4th Level in Scotland, and Progression Step 4 in Wales.
Students and teachers over the age of 16 can create a free Financial Times account. For a Financial Times article about coastal flooding in the UK from 2019, click here.
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