Beach face

Definition of Beach face: Beach zone (also called "foreshore") from the low-water line to the limit of maximum wave uprush (or the beach berm) at high tide. . This is the common definition for Beach face, other definitions can be discussed in the article

Notes

Schematic representation of different beach zones.

The beach face is the part of the shore/beach which is wetted due to the varying tide and swash under normal conditions. This means that the beach face in morphological terms extends further up on the beach than the intersection between the mean high water (MHW) and the coastal profile (MHW line). However, for practical reasons the upper delineation of the beach face is sometimes defined as the intersection between the MHW line and the coastal profile, which is identical to the usual definition of the shoreline.

On the lower part of wide intertidal beaches several intertidal bars (also called beach ridges) can be present, related to onshore moving nearshore sandbars. The depressions between these intertidal bars are called runnels.

See also

Beach berm

Definitions of coastal terms