Rivers, Coasts and Coastal Landforms
What you must know
River processes are erosion, transportation, deposition. Erosion types: hydraulic action, abrasion, attrition, solution. Transportation: traction, saltation, suspension, solution. Landforms include V-shaped valleys, waterfalls, meanders, oxbow lakes, floodplains and deltas. The Bahamas has few surface rivers, so coastal processes matter more: waves, tides, longshore drift and currents.
Concepts to master
Constructive versus destructive waves; swash and backwash; longshore drift; headlands and bays; cliffs, wave-cut platforms, caves, arches, stacks; beaches, spits, bars and tombolo. Coral reefs, mangroves and dunes as natural coastal defences, and hard versus soft engineering.
Traps in questions
Do not say longshore drift moves material out to sea; it moves it along the coast in the direction of the prevailing wave approach. Do not confuse erosion with weathering. In the Bahamas, remember that limestone coasts erode chemically by solution, not only by wave pounding.
Rule of thumb
For any landform question, use the triplet: process → landform → evidence. Example: destructive waves with strong backwash (process) cut a cliff and wave-cut platform (landform), shown by a steep face and rock debris at the base (evidence).