Sedimentary Budget - Cross-shore Movement

Cross-shore Movement

Wave swash and currents can impact significantly on the sediment budget, although it is difficult to measure. Swash can be either an erosive or accretion process depending on many factors such as the sand texture and the individual wave itself. Although during fair weather the impact of swash is negligible, during storms the sea level can rise high enough to erode dunes and cliffs, dumping large quantities of sediment into the littoral cell, which can only be given back to the dune by aeolian transport. Where storm surge causes sediments to be deposited on the land from the littoral cell, they can form washover fans or open a new tidal inlet which transports sediment away from the littoral cell.