Beach Analysis

Introduction

Beaches consist of accumulated sediments from fine sand to large cobbles which are transported and deposited by waves and currents. A beach relates to the shore profile that extends from a spring low tide to a land change of topography, in the case of Fistral beach, sand dunes (Masselink & Pattiaratchi, 2001). Sand particles are effected and transported in many ways which creates the beach morphology from day to day with it being effected by daily tides, longshore drift and cross shore drift as well as seasonal changes (Inman & Komar, 1970).A Seasonal change in Fistral beach is traditional and guaranteed which is attributed to a variety of factors at different seasons of the year. In summer there are lower energy waves with calmer conditions, in winter there are more energetic

2014). Onshore and offshore pose different sediment capabilities with onshore being the most as it contains the most suspended sediment due to bore wave collapse (Karamabas, 2006). Fistral beach has a lot of fine sediment which can, and is, easily moved by onshore and offshore. This flow easily takes up this fine sediment and moves it constantly, altering the beach morphology when there is high energy however between offshore flow and slack water, without longshore drift, sediment transport could not occur (Hughes & Masselink, 2003). There are many factors that enable uprush sediment to be transported from and to the beach even though the energy is equal to the backwash, these include flow acceleration, bore turbulence, settling lag, off-shore directed velocity skewness, scour lag and sediment advection from the surf zone (Masselink & Puleo, 2006). This allows for a compensation of the offshore directed velocity skewness however the importance of each of these factors depends on the type of swash