Beach Features

Excerpt

When discussing the types of features that can be observed along a beach, it is important to first consider the boundaries in the coastal zone that define the limits of a beach. In everyday usage and in the scientific literature, there are some differences in defining these limits, primarily with regard to the seaward limit. Recreational beach users will often consider the beach to extend no farther seaward than the shoreline, and thus limit the beach to an entirely emergent feature, having a width that varies with changing water level. Scientific usage typically extends the beach out to the maximum limit of low water regardless of the water level at any particular time. In some scientific usage, such as in the discussion of coastal sediment dynamics, the seaward limit of the beach may be considered to extend out to the breaker zone (Figure B22) well beyond the low-water shoreline. The most useful definition, and the one used here, is that the beach refers to the zone containing unconsolidated material that extends from the limit of ordinary low-water (or mean low-tide level) on its seaward side to the limit of influence by storm waves on its landward side (Figure B22) (Hunt and Groves, 1965; Baker et al., 1966; Coastal Engineering Research Center, 1984).

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