Longshore Sediment Transport

This page is available in multiple languages:
Longshore Sediment Transport (English)
沿岸漂砂輸送 (日本語)
Transporte de sedimentos litoral (Español)
Transport de sédiments littoraux (Français)

Diagram of Longshore Drift and Sediment Transport: 1=Land 2=Shoreline 3=Sea 4=Direction of prevailing wind 5=Swash 6=Backwash 7=Direction of longshore current and the sediment movement

Sediment transport along the beach (parallel to the shoreline) caused by longshore currents and/or waves approaching obliquely to the shoreline. See Littoral Drift.

For an in-depth understanding of how beaches form and change (including longshore sediment transport), watch the 20-minute video The Beach - A River of Sand (1965) which was made by Doug Inman, a marine geologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.