What is littoral drift explain?
Littoral drift or longshore sediment transport is the term used for the longshore transport of sediments (mainly sand), along the upper shoreface due to the action of breaking and longshore currents.
What is a littoral drift boundary?
Longshore drift is simply the sediment moved by the longshore current. This current and sediment movement occur within the surf zone. The process is also known as littoral drift. Beach sand is also moved on such oblique wind days, due to the swash and backwash of water on the beach.
What is the process of longshore drift?
Longshore drift is a process of transportation that shifts eroded material along the coastline. Waves approach the coast at an angle. Swash carries sediment up the beach at an angle. Backwash carries sediment down the beach with gravity – at right angles to the beach.
What is the result of littoral drift?
onto the shoreface. The backwash of water rushes down the shoreface perpendicular to the shoreline or a slight downcoast angle, thus creating a zigzag movement of sand. This zigzag motion effectively results in a current parallel to the shoreline.
How do groins work?
Groins are shore perpendicular structures, used to maintain updrift beaches or to restrict longshore sediment transport. By design, these structures are meant to capture sand transported by the longshore current; this depletes the sand supply to the beach area immediately down-drift of the structure.
Why is littoral drift important?
Longshore Drift (littoral drift) Longshore drift is a process responsible for moving significant amounts of sediment along the coast. This usually occurs in one direction as dictated by the prevailing wind. For example, the prevailing wind along the Holderness Coast is north-easterly.
What is shoreline Modelling?
Shoreline is a “line model” for modeling the evolution of a coastline as the result of wind/wave-driven longshore sediment transport. It is based on conservation of mass and a semi-empirical sediment transport formula known as the CERC formula.
What is coastal deposition?
When the sea loses energy, it drops the sand, rock particles and pebbles it has been carrying. This is called deposition. Deposition happens when the swash is stronger than the backwash and is associated with constructive waves.
What is groin structure?
What are groins made of?
Groins are much shorter structures built on straight stretches of beach away from inlets. Groins are intended to trap sand moving in longshore currents. They can be made of wood, stone, concrete, steel, or fabric bags filled with sand.