Introductory notes
The context is the threat to an area of coastal Mediterranean lowland likely to be impacted by significant rises in sea levels. The economic wealth of this area has increased dramatically in the last 30 years principally because of tourist development along its coastal plain. This landscape has been subject to fluctuating sea levels in its recent geological past and is now threatened by the predicted rise in sea levels associated with climate change over the next 100 years.
This exercise requires you to make connections between the various processes operating in the landscape and the changes which follow when these elements are affected. For example, how might the loss of the coastal wetland nature reserves affect the local economy? What areas are likely to be impacted soonest, and which habitats are most threatened? Is there any data we should be collecting now to help us to monitor the scale of change? Or to assess the likely impacts? These and other questions are raised on the films.
You should offer reasoned arguments to support your conclusions. Think about the ways in which you might put quantitative estimates on some of your speculations (even if you do not go ahead and collect the data).
