Studying the mobility of the shoreline

Choose one or several sites concerned by the coastline mobility, for example in France : Hyères-les-Palmiers.

Find the data to ensure the activity using a public website giving access to national geographic data (actual and historical data). In France, for example, you can use the following website : https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/.

Research historical data and click on old photography (1950-1965) of your study site.

Choose your scale (for example 1:2000) for your chosen site and save or capture your map image.

Then, remove the old photography layer and redo the same process for today’s satellite images.

Teacher remembers to the students natural impacts on the coast (storm surge, stream, subsidence…) and main notions about artificialization, urbanisation and littoralization helped with the O1 draft.

Teacher gives to the students the necessary cards fonds. They should trace the two shorelines on a layer paper with a color to highlight it and compare it (old/new) or with computers with the help of easy software like Paint.

Students work on groups of 3-4 persons and start thinking about the changes in the coastline and list which phenomenon may cause these changes according to their knowledge.

Students discuss and share the reasons of the coastline mobility according to them.  The teacher helps students to find out the real causes of the regression/accretion of Mediterranean beaches for each areas chosen.

The teacher introduces implementation/techniques used to strife against the regression of the shoreline: hard management (cobs, sand rolls, rip-rap) and integrated/flexible coastal zone management (revegetation/maintenance of dunes).