OxfordAQA International A-Level Geography: Physical Geography 1 – Living with Hazards (9635)

This guide covers Unit 1 Physical Geography 1: Living with Hazards, one of two units forming the International AS in OxfordAQA International AS and A-level Geography (9635), first teaching September 2018. Candidates choose one of two options within Unit 1 – Hot Desert Systems and Landscapes, or Coastal Systems and Landscapes. AS candidates may complete just Unit 1 and Unit 2; A-level candidates continue to Units 3-5.

Where this fits in 9635

Unit 1 introduces physical geography through the study of hazardous, dynamic landscapes – whichever option is chosen – establishing the systems-based thinking (inputs, processes, outputs) that Units 3 (Physical Geography 2) builds on with water, carbon and ecosystems content.

Syllabus coverage

OXFORDAQA INTERNATIONAL A-LEVEL GEOGRAPHY (9635) — UNIT 1 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 1: LIVING WITH HAZARDS

• 1a Living with Hazards — Hot Desert Systems and Landscapes — the processes, landforms and challenges of hot desert environments
• 1b Living with Hazards — Coastal Systems and Landscapes — the processes, landforms and challenges of coastal environments

How to approach it

Whichever option a course follows, the strongest answers apply named case studies to specific processes and landforms rather than describing systems in the abstract, so build a small set of detailed, real-world examples for the chosen option early in the course. Both options share an underlying “living with hazards” framing – how people manage risk and adapt to a naturally dynamic environment – so keep this human dimension in view alongside the physical processes, since exam questions frequently connect the two. Because only one of the two options is studied, confirm early which option your course follows and focus revision there rather than splitting attention across both. Pairing Unit 1 revision with Unit 2’s human geography content – Global Systems and Governance, and Resource Security – can also help, since both units together form the full International AS and are often assessed with an awareness of how physical and human processes interact.

Official syllabus

OxfordAQA International AS and A-level Geography (9635) specification, Version 3.2 — oxfordaqa.com.

Hazards, risk and perception

A hazard is a natural event with the potential to cause damage; a disaster occurs when it overwhelms a community’s ability to cope. The distinction explains why an identical event produces very different outcomes in different places.

Risk = hazard x vulnerability / capacity to cope

Vulnerability depends on poverty, building quality, population density, age structure and warning systems. Capacity to cope depends on governance, wealth, infrastructure and preparedness.

Hazard perception shapes response. People may accept risk fatalistically, adapt to it, or seek to dominate it through engineering — and the view held determines what management is politically possible.

The Park model (disaster response curve) traces relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction, and comparing curves for different countries is a standard exam task. The hazard management cycle runs preparedness, response, recovery, mitigation.

Tectonic hazards

Plate movement is driven by mantle convection, ridge push and slab pull.

Margin	Process	Hazards
Constructive	Plates diverge, magma rises	Shield volcanoes, shallow earthquakes
Destructive	Oceanic subducts under continental	Composite volcanoes, deep earthquakes, tsunami
Collision	Continental meets continental	Fold mountains, major earthquakes
Conservative	Plates slide past	Major earthquakes, no volcanism

Earthquake hazards: ground shaking, liquefaction, landslides, tsunami. Magnitude is measured on the moment magnitude scale, intensity on Mercalli — magnitude is a property of the event, intensity of the effects at a place.

Volcanic hazards: lava flows, pyroclastic flows, lahars, ash falls, gases. Prediction is more reliable for volcanoes than for earthquakes, because precursors — seismicity, ground deformation, gas emission — are measurable.

Storm hazards

Tropical storms require sea temperatures above about 27 degrees Celsius to a depth of 60 metres, latitudes between 5 and 30 degrees for Coriolis deflection, low wind shear, and convergence in the lower atmosphere.

The specification’s forms of storm hazard are high winds, storm surges (usually the greatest killer), coastal flooding, river flooding and landslides. Responses are short and long term, with risk management designed to reduce impacts through preparedness, mitigation, prevention and adaptation (3.1.1.5) — for river flooding, for example, forecasting and warnings, floodplain zoning, and engineered defences such as levées.

Coastal systems and landscapes (Option 1b)

Coastlines are shaped by three erosion processes – hydraulic action (the sheer force of water compressing air in rock cracks), abrasion (rock fragments carried by waves scouring the coastline) and attrition (rock fragments wearing each other down as they collide) – alongside solution, the chemical dissolving of soluble rock. Material is moved along the coast by longshore drift: waves approach the beach at an angle, so the swash carries sediment obliquely up the beach while backwash drags it straight back down under gravity, producing a net movement of material along the shore.

These processes produce a characteristic set of landforms. Differential erosion of alternating resistant and less-resistant rock produces headlands and bays. Along a resistant headland, wave action can progressively erode a line of weakness into a cave, then widen it into an arch, then collapse the arch’s roof to leave an isolated stack, and finally erode the stack’s base to leave a stump. Continued erosion of a retreating cliff leaves a gently sloping wave-cut platform exposed at its base. Where longshore drift dominates over erosion, deposition produces spits (where the coastline changes direction, allowing sediment to build out into open water) and tombolos (where a spit extends far enough to connect the mainland to an island).

Wave type also matters: constructive waves are low and have a long wavelength, with swash stronger than backwash, so they build beaches up; destructive waves are high with a short wavelength, and their strong backwash pulls material away, eroding beaches.

Coastlines are best understood as a sediment cell – a largely closed system of sources, transfers and sinks of material. This framing explains why coastal management in one location affects another: groynes built to trap sediment for one beach starve the beach further along the drift direction of material, causing erosion there instead. Management choices split into hard engineering (sea walls, groynes, rip-rap) and soft engineering (beach nourishment, dune stabilisation, managed retreat). Managed retreat – deliberately allowing the sea to reclaim land rather than defending it – is increasingly favoured on cost and sustainability grounds, but remains socially contentious wherever it means abandoning inhabited or farmed land.

Worked example

Two earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 occur, one in a high-income country and one in a low-income country. Explain the difference in impact.

Building quality    aseismic design and enforced codes vs unreinforced
                    masonry -- the primary determinant of death toll
Warning systems     monitoring and public alerts vs none
Emergency response  equipped search and rescue within hours vs days
Healthcare capacity able to absorb mass casualties vs quickly overwhelmed
Recovery            insurance and reserves fund rapid rebuilding vs
                    dependence on international aid

-> hazard magnitude is identical; VULNERABILITY and CAPACITY differ,
   which is what the risk equation predicts

Naming specific events as evidence turns this from a list into a full-mark answer.

Common mistakes

Using hazard and disaster interchangeably. Confusing magnitude with intensity. Placing volcanoes at conservative or collision margins. Saying tsunami are caused by weather. Describing storm surge as heavy rainfall. Answering with no named case study, which physical geography questions still require.

Quick revision checklist

• Distinguish hazard, risk, vulnerability and disaster, and use the risk equation.
• Explain hazard perception and apply the Park model and management cycle.
• Describe all four plate margins with their characteristic hazards.
• Distinguish magnitude from intensity and list earthquake and volcanic hazards.
• Explain the formation conditions and hazards of tropical storms.
• Compare impacts between countries of contrasting development, with named examples.