Field observations of sediment fluxes in the inner-surf and swash zones

Abstract

The behaviour of sediment fluxes is currently less well understood in the inner-surf and swash zones than farther seaward. In the present study, field measurements were obtained of cross-shore velocity and suspended-sediment concentration from 6 and 13 heights above the bed, respectively, between the breakpoint and the shore of an intermediate-to-reflective beach, over a range of hydrodynamic conditions, to examine the cross-shore structure of sediment flux and the physical mechanisms responsible for the observed patterns. Particular attention is given to the innersurf and swash zones, which are known to contain sediment-transport processes poorly predicted by models based on velocity moments. The cross-shore structure of the depth-integrated, suspended sediment flux is found to vary according to the forcing conditions considerably more in the inner-surf and swash zones than in the outer surf and shoaling zones. In high-energy conditions, fluxes are dominated by a large offshore peak in the outer swash zone, and in low-energy conditions, fluxes are dominated by weak onshore values increasing shorewards. Examination of the temporal and vertical structure of the velocity, sediment concentration, and flux within individual events where offshore transport was dominant reveals that near-bed suspended sediment responds just as readily to mid-watercolumn velocity shear as to boundary-layer shear. Examination of events in which onshore transport was dominant reveals that near-bed suspended-sediment concentration responds more readily to near-bed horizontal acceleration than to absolute values of near-bed velocity.