The resource booklet for an estuary study in Malaysia includes Fig. 1. It shows a proposed managed realignment scheme beside a fishing settlement. A low sea...
Question 1 Report
The resource booklet for an estuary study in Malaysia includes Fig. 1. It shows a proposed managed realignment scheme beside a fishing settlement. A low sea wall would be breached so that seawater can enter former grazing land. Mangroves would be planted in the new intertidal area. The local enquiry recorded that young fish shelter among mangrove roots and that the village road lies on higher ground. The scheme is intended to reduce flood risk while retaining a coastal resource that supports fishing and tourism.
(a) Identify three features of the managed realignment scheme shown in Fig. 1. [3]
(b) Describe four ways that mangroves can provide a resource for people in the settlement. [4]
(c) State five physical processes that may occur after the sea wall is breached. [5]
(d) Which two groups may disagree about this proposal? Describe three reasons for this disagreement. [6]
(e) Explain why managed realignment could be a more sustainable coastal strategy here than continually raising the old sea wall. [7]
Answer Details
(a) Features include the breached old sea wall, new intertidal saltmarsh, mangrove planting, former grazing land allowed to flood, and the road or village on higher land. Any three [1] points. [3]
(b) Mangroves provide nursery habitat that supports fish stocks, fish for food, fishing income, reduced wave energy and flood risk, sediment trapping and shore stabilisation, tourism scenery, and potentially sustainable forest products. Any four [1] points. [4]
(c) After breach, tidal water enters, former land is inundated, sediment is deposited, saltmarsh plants colonise, mangroves establish or spread, tidal creeks develop, and vegetation reduces wave energy. Any five [1] points. [5]
(d) Farmers or landowners and fishers may disagree. [2] Farmers may lose productive grazing land, income, or property value. Fishers may gain nursery habitat and larger fish stocks. Residents may gain reduced flood risk, conservation groups may value new habitat, while some residents may dislike changed access or landscape. Explain three reasons. [3] [6]
(e) Managed realignment lets floodwater spread over a planned area rather than threaten the village [1]. Saltmarsh and mangroves absorb wave energy [1], while vegetation and sediment form a self-maintaining buffer [1]. It reduces repeated expenditure on high sea walls [1], supports biodiversity and fisheries [1], keeps the raised road and settlement protected [1], and accepts controlled coastal change rather than an increasingly costly permanent barrier. [1] [7]
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