Sediment Transport

Sediment transport is the mechanism that translates the work of hydrodynamic processes into morphological change. Without a transport of sediment, there would be no beaches. Significant progress has been made on the topic of non-cohesive sediment transport in wave-dominated settings since the first publication of this chapter. This especially applies to the study of sheet flow, and the effects of acceleration skewness and breaker-generated turbulence on sediment mobilization. Following an introductory section, techniques for measuring sediment transport are described, providing context for the following sections. Section 3 discusses the physical mechanisms that mobilize the sediment and suspend sand into the water column. Processes resulting in cross-shore (onshore/offshore) sediment transport, and ultimately beach erosion and accretion, are described in Section 4 and longshore sediment transport in Section 5. Finally, sediment transport in the swash zone is discussed in Section 6.