Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50

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Earth-Science Reviews
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Sediment transport on dissipative, intermediate and reflective beaches

Troels Aagaard a,⁎, Brian Greenwood b, Michael Hughes c
a
Institute of Geoscience and Natural Resources, University of Copenhagen, DK-1350 Copenhagen K., Denmark
b
Department of Physical and Environmental Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Scarborough, Ontario M1C 1A4, Canada
c
School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, we review and synthesize field measurements of suspended sediment transport on the
Received 17 September 2012 shoreface of dissipative, intermediate and reflective beach states. The morphodynamic beach state continu-
Accepted 6 May 2013 um was originally established in the 1970s but at the time, only hydrodynamic processes and morphologies
Available online 20 May 2013
in these various states were described. Since the early 1980s when sensors capable of resolving suspended
sediment concentration at intra-wave time scale became available, many studies have examined suspended
Keywords:
Morphodynamics
sediment transport by waves and currents on the shoreface. The synthesis of this work shows that the two
Beach state model end states in the morphodynamic continuum, which are the dissipative and reflective states, exhibit relative-
Sediment transport ly small rates of cross-shore sediment transport and weak gradients in that transport which both ensure that
Coastal processes the nearshore morphology is relatively stable. The intervening intermediate beach states typically exhibit
prominent bar topographies and in these states, strong morphodynamic feedbacks between hydrodynamic
processes and morphology create locally large transport rates and sharp transport gradients which is the rea-
son for the dynamic nature of these beach states. Transport processes driving sediment onshore and offshore
within beach states are discussed as well as the transport processes responsible for state transitions.
© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
32
2. Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
33
3. Beaches and research methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
34
4. Shoreface hydrodynamics and sediment transport components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
36
5. Dissipative beaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
37
6. Intermediate beaches: 2D bathymetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
39
7. Intermediate beaches: 3D bathymetry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
42
8. Reflective beaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
44
9. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
46
10. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
48
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
49
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0
49

1. Introduction the nature of shallow-water transformation of wave energy inputs, or

The term (coastal) morphodynamics is defined as the mutual in-
teractions between fluid dynamics and morphology, involving the
motion of sediment (Wright and Thom, 1977). Intensive research ef-
forts in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s on beach hydrodynamics and
morphology led to the definition of six distinct morphodynamic beach
states (Wright and Short, 1984) which were classified according to
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +45 353 22500; fax: +45 35 322501.
E-mail address: taa@geo.ku.dk (T. Aagaard).
more specifically whether energy is reflected from the beach face or
dissipated in the surf zone. This led to the definition of reflective and
dissipative beach states, whereas beaches exhibiting a mixture of reflec-
tive and dissipative elements were termed intermediate, of which four
were distinguished. Each of these six states exhibit unique, well-defined
beach/shoreface morphologies.
Low-gradient sandy beaches exposed to relatively large waves are
typically dissipative with a wide surf zone containing spilling breakers
and surf bores. In terms of morphology, beaches that are predominantly
dissipative exhibit alongshore quasi-uniform morphology and subdued

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 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50
nearshore bars with relatively small vertical relief between bar crests
and intervening troughs. Under dissipative conditions, the mean cur-
rent circulation in the surf zone is vertically stratified with near-bed
offshore-directed flow (undertow) balancing the onshore mass trans-
port in waves and surf bores/rollers within the upper parts of the
water column (Wright et al., 1982). At the other end of the spectrum,
steeply sloping beaches exposed to relatively small waves tend to be re-
flective. Incident waves shoal from deep water to the shoreline where
waves break through plunging or surging, and much of the wave energy
is reflected back offshore. On reflective beaches, surf zones are very nar-
row, or completely absent. The morphology is also typically uniform
alongshore except for beach cusps and the shoreface is non-barred.
The mean current circulation consists of weak return flow compensat-
ing the onshore wave mass transport which is in this case not enhanced
by a roller component. In between these two morphodynamic end
states, intermediate beaches contain both dissipative and reflective ele-
ments. A—small or large—fraction of the wave energy is dissipated
when waves break on bars, but sufficient incident wave energy is pre-
served as the waves propagate onshore after breaking such that
swash at wind wave frequencies is energetic and a portion of the incom-
ing wave energy is reflected back offshore. Since nearshore bars are
more prominent and typically exhibit steeper landward and seaward
slopes on intermediate than on dissipative beaches, and since bar
troughs are relatively deeper, waves generally break on bars as plunging
breakers and waves reform in the deep troughs between bar(s).
Intermediate beaches possess varying degrees of alongshore non-
uniformity both in terms of hydrodynamic processes and morphology.
When alongshore non-uniformity is small, undertow is still the domi-
nant return flow but with accentuated alongshore bar rhythmicity/
non-uniformity, the mean current circulation becomes horizontally
stratified exhibiting rip cell circulation where offshore directed rip
currents balance the onshore mass flux carried by waves and surf
bores/rollers. The rip circulation intensifies for increasingly accentuated
morphologic three-dimensionality. A total of four intermediate beach
states were defined by Wright and Short (1984) ranging from (in de-
scending order from high to low energy) the Longshore Bar-Trough
(LBT), Rhythmic Bar-and-Beach (RBB), Transverse Bar-and-Rip (TBR)
and the Low Tide Terrace (LTT) states.
Providing that the morphology is in equilibrium with hydrody-
namic forcing, dissipative, intermediate and reflective beaches can
be distinguished on the basis of the non-dimensional sediment fall
velocity
Ω ¼ Hb =ðws T Þ
where Hb is wave breaker height, T is wave period and ws is sediment
fall velocity (Gourlay, 1968). Single-barred, dissipative beaches are
associated with Ω > 6 while reflective beaches occur when Ω b 1.5
and (single-barred) beaches are intermediate for intermediate values
of Ω (Short, 1999).
Later research on beaches in wave climates that are very different
from the swell-dominated beaches of Australia has largely confirmed
the above paradigm and the general characteristics of the morpho-
dynamic classification scheme (Aagaard, 1988; Lippman and Holman,
1990; Castelle et al., 2007; Senechal et al., 2009; Scott et al., 2011) and
the classification was later extended by Masselink and Short (1993) to
include beaches with a strong tidal influence, and to double- and
multi-barred beaches by Short and Aagaard (1993). In multi-barred
systems, the seaward bar(s) tend to be quasi-uniform alongshore
exhibiting dissipative morphology whereas bar(s) that are located
more shoreward may be increasingly three-dimensional exhibiting
intermediate-state morphological characteristics which is consistent
with the onshore decrease in Ω brought about by decreasing wave
heights as waves break over successive bars.
While a great deal of effort was invested in examining the hydro-
dynamic processes and morphology associated with different beach
33
types, systematic research into the vital link between the two, the
transport of sediment was never pursued to any great extent, in
part because of instrumental constraints. However, since the early
1980s when the OBS-sensor was introduced (Downing et al., 1981),
it has been viable to measure in detail at least the transport of sedi-
ment in suspension, and over the past three decades many papers
have been published on suspended sediment transport both on natu-
ral beaches and in laboratory environments. However, this research
has rarely been put into the context of beach morphodynamics and
no systematic overview of (suspended) sediment transport on dissi-
pative, reflective and intermediate-state beaches exists. On the basis
of our research within a wide range of beach types and drawing
upon the available literature, this paper will review and synthesize
research on shoreface sediment transport in the framework of the
morphodynamic paradigm.
It needs to be emphasized here that we consider only cross-shore
sediment transport. Since cross-shore sediment transport gradients
are typically much larger than gradients in the longshore transport,
the cross-shore gradients are the main driver of beach morphology
change. Therefore, it is mainly in terms of cross-shore transport that
dissipative, reflective and intermediate beaches differ, because the
different beach profile shapes and ensuing patterns of wave transfor-
mation create different spatial sediment transport patterns. The paper
is structured as follows: In Section 2, the definitions used here are in-
troduced with a brief description of the overall shoreface morpholo-
gy. Section 3 describes the field data sets and the methodology used
to obtain the data while Section 4 reviews the hydrodynamic processes
that move sediment on the shoreface. Sections 5–8 review cross-shore
sediment transport on dissipative, intermediate and reflective beaches,
respectively, while Section 9 synthesizes the findings, followed by con-
clusions in Section 10.
2. Definitions
The shoreface is defined herein as the portion of the coastal zone
that extends from the limit of significant sediment transport by waves
to the lower limit of swash on the beach face (Fig. 1). The shoreface
comprises the upper shoreface where waves may break generating a
surf zone and it contains one or more nearshore bars that exhibit a
range of alongshore morphological shapes, associated with the different
beach states. Further seaward is the lower shoreface where waves are
shoaling and this is devoid of large-scale morphological forms.
ð1Þ Smaller-scale morphological features such as wave ripples typically
cover the lower shoreface and ripples are also often present in troughs
between bars on the upper shoreface (Clifton, 1976; Shipp, 1984;
Greenwood and Mittler, 1985). However, when bed shear stresses ex-
ceed a certain threshold (Gallagher et al., 2003; Hay and Mudge,
2005) such as occurs, for example, in shallow water over bar crests,
small-scale bedforms are replaced by flat beds, or in some cases
megaripples (Ngusaru and Hay, 2004).
Fig. 1. Definition sketch of the shoreface. MWL is mean water level. Elevations and
distances are not absolute.
34 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50
3. Beaches and research methodology
Representative cross-shore profiles of the beaches on which we
conducted measurements of sediment transport are depicted in
Fig. 2. The group comprises two dissipative beaches, two intermediate
beaches and one reflective beach. Below, the main characteristics of
these beaches are described briefly; more details can be found in
the listed references.
(1) Skallingen is a triple-barred dissipative beach in SW Denmark,
exposed to the storm wave climate of the North Sea (Aagaard et al.,
2004). During high-energy conditions, nearshore bars are two-
dimensional alongshore commensurate with the dissipative process
assemblage, while during low-to-moderate energy conditions, the
inner bar(s) assume an intermediate morphodynamic state often
exhibiting rip current circulation. The mean annual significant wave
height in deep water is Hs = 1.1 m with a mean wave period of
T = 4 s and the spring tidal range is 1.8 m. During storms, offshore
wave heights exceed Hs = 4 m and wave periods can range up to
T = 10–12 s. The mean grain size of the sediment on the upper
shoreface, which slopes at β = 0.009, is Mz = 150–200 μm and the
bars are low and their landward and seaward slopes are gentle
(Fig. 2). Consequently, when offshore waves are large or moderate,
breakers are predominantly spilling and the surf zone is wide (Fig. 3).
(2) Burley Beach is located on the southeast shore of Lake Huron,
Ontario, Canada. Because of the relatively short fetch lengths in the
lake (except towards the north), the wave climate is dominated by
steep storm waves which, in combination with a gently sloping
shoreface (β = 0.009–0.011) and low-relief nearshore bars lead to a
predominantly dissipative beach state and spilling breakers occur
during high-energy wave events (Aagaard and Greenwood, 1995;
Houser and Greenwood, 2005a). The mean deep-water mid-lake sig-
nificant wave height is Hs = 2.0 m but during large storms heights
are up to Hs = 5 m+ with wave periods of T =4–6 s; during such
high-energy events, up to 9–10 continuously spilling surf bores can
be observed in the surf zone. The mean sediment grain size on the
shoreface is Mz = 180–200 μm, the beach is tideless and the shoreface
Fig. 2. Cross-shore profiles of the dissipative beaches at Skallingen (Denmark) and
Burley Beach (Ontario, Canada), the intermediate-state beaches at Staengehus and
Vejers (Denmark) and at the reflective Pearl Beach (NSW, Australia). Not all three
bars are included in the profiles from Skallingen and Vejers since the upper shoreface
is wide on those two beaches. Note, to facilitate intercomparison the horizontal axis is
similar for all profiles.
bathymetry is predominantly two-dimensional (Greenwood et al.,
2006).
(3) Staengehus Beach is intermediate and located on the coast
of North Zealand, Denmark facing the Kattegat Sea (Aagaard and
Greenwood, 2008) with relatively long fetches towards the north and
northwest (up to 350 km). The wave climate is intermittent with brief
storm periods during which wave heights reach Hs = 2–3 m and wave
periods T = 6–7 s, and these moderate-high energy events are inter-
spersed between often long periods of calm wave conditions during
which the morphology is arrested. The tidal range is about 0.2 m. The
upper shoreface is triple-barred; the bars are mostly rhythmic alongshore
and waves typically plunge on bars and reform in troughs (Fig. 4). The
mean grain size of the shoreface is Mz =200–300 μm and the slope of
the upper shoreface is about β = 0.016.
(4) Vejers is also situated on the Danish North Sea coast, a short
distance north of Skallingen but separated from it by the extensive
submerged shoal of Horns Rev (Aagaard, 2011). This beach is also a
triple-barred system with large, steeply sloping outer and middle bars
that are often sinuous or weakly rhythmic alongshore and the modal
beach state is intermediate. Note that the outer bar is more than
400 m offshore and is not included on the profile in Fig. 2. The average
annual offshore significant wave height is Hs = 1.3 m with a mean
wave period of T = 4–5 s but during storms, wave heights can be up
to Hs =6.5 m with periods in excess of 10 s. The spring tidal range is
1.2 m. Waves typically plunge on bars and reform in the troughs during
storm events. The mean grain size on the shoreface is Mz = 180–
200 μm and the upper shoreface slopes at β ≈ 0.008.
(5) Finally, Pearl Beach is a reflective pocket beach located within the
Broken Bay estuary, NSW, Australia (Fig. 5). The offshore wave climate
outside the estuary is dominated by swell with a mean significant
wave height of Hs = 1.6 m and mean wave periods of T = 8–9 s but
since waves are strongly refracted and diffracted within the estuary, in-
shore wave heights are significantly lower. The spring tidal range is
1.6 m and the beach is unbarred with a mean grain size on the shoreface
of Mz = 250–300 μm (Hughes and Cowell, 1987). The shoreface slope
is about β = 0.07, i.e. significantly steeper than any of the other
beaches (Fig. 2).
During most of the field experiments, suspended sediment fluxes
were measured using stacks of optical backscatter sensors (OBS-1P)
and/or fibre-optical backscatter sensors (UFOBS-7; Downing, 2006).
The OBS sensors were mounted in vertical arrays of three or six sen-
sors with the lowermost sensor being mounted at a nominal eleva-
tion of 5 cm above the bed. This elevation was ‘nominal’ inasmuch
as the level of the bed fluctuates under natural conditions such that
the sensors were often a few cms higher or lower than their nominal
elevations. Sensor elevations were adjusted as often as possible, usu-
ally during low tide conditions or whenever wave conditions permit-
ted. The backscatter sensors were sampled at frequencies of 4–16 Hz
and the sediment concentration measurements were paired with
measurements of flow velocity using electromagnetic current meters
(MarshMcBirney OEM512). Since the latter instruments must be lo-
cated at distances exceeding 2.5 times the probe diameter (4 cm)
above the bed in order to avoid distortion of the electromagnetic
field, they were mounted at the upper end of the OBS-arrays. Howev-
er, since the water column is well-mixed under breaking wave condi-
tions, the exact position of current meters relative to the backscatter
devices is not critical for sediment transport estimates (Austin and
Masselink, 2008). During some experiments, OBS-arrays were
complemented by arrays of five UFOBS-7 sensors mounted at 1 cm
spacing beginning at (nominally) 1 cm above bed level. Concentra-
tion measurements from these sensors were paired with measure-
ments from acoustic current meters (3D sideways-looking Sontek
10 MHz Acoustic Doppler Velocimeters) mounted 2–5 cm above the
bed. More information on the measurement procedures applied to
suspended sediment transport under breaking waves and the related
 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50 35

Fig. 3. Photo from Skallingen during storm conditions. The beach is dissipative with continuously spilling surf bores propagating through an approximately 500 m wide surf zone.

data processing techniques can be found in e.g. Aagaard and Greenwood
(1994). Wave heights and periods were measured by Druck pressure
sensors.
At the reflective Pearl Beach, suspended sediment transport was
recorded under non-breaking wave conditions using acoustic Doppler
profilers (PC-ADP) that measure fluid velocity and acoustic backscatter
at the same vertical levels with 1.6 cm resolution from 5 cm below the
sensor elevation (z ≈ 50 cm) down to the seabed. Using a sonar inver-
sion algorithm (Osborne et al., 1994; Thorne and Hanes, 2002; Moate
and Thorne, 2012), backscattered acoustic pressure was converted to
sediment concentration. More information on the data processing at
Pearl Beach can be found in Aagaard et al. (2012).
The net sediment flux at discrete sensor elevations (qz) was
obtained from the expression:
transport rates over the vertical can then be obtained from vertically
integrating Eq.(2); this is, however, rarely done when OBS sensors are
used because a sufficient number of sensors is not often available to
resolve the entire water column. Moreover, because of physical size,
these sensors cannot be mounted in the high-concentration near-bed
layer. However, since the water column is well mixed under breaking
waves, OBS sensors at discrete elevations usually yield a robust descrip-
tion of sediment transport rates and directions, see also Miles et al.
(2002). The resulting sediment fluxes, measured at a single, or a few el-
evations, can then be separated into contributions from steady flows
(mean currents) and oscillatory wave motions using the uc-integral
concept (Jaffe et al., 1984):
u  c þ u′ c′
c ¼u ð3Þ

T
qz ¼ ∫ uz;CM ðt Þcz;OBS ðt Þ ð2Þ In Eq. (3), overbars denote mean quantities, and tildes represent
0 oscillatory sediment transport components. Huntley and Hanes
(1987) demonstrated how the u′c′ term in Eq. (3) can be resolved
where T is the length of an instrument burst time series, uz,CM(t) is in- in frequency space by using cross-spectral techniques in order to ob-
stantaneous fluid velocity at elevation z and cz,OBS(t) is instantaneous tain the co-spectrum which yields oscillatory sediment flux rates and
sediment concentration at an OBS-elevation. Net suspended sediment directions associated with different wave frequencies.

Fig. 4. Photo from Staengehus during moderate wave conditions. The beach is intermediate with wave breaking on nearshore bars and wave reformation in troughs. The two inner
lines of breakers indicate the positions of the two inner bars and a single wave is breaking on the outer bar 200 m offshore.
36 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50
Fig. 5. Photo from Pearl Beach during modal swell conditions. The beach is reflective. A wave is plunging at the step at the base of the beach face and backwash from the preceding
wave is channelized by beach cusps. There is no surf zone.
4. Shoreface hydrodynamics and sediment transport components
Cross-shore sediment transport on the shoreface is controlled by the
balance between transport by oscillatory wave motions and transport
by wave-generated steady currents. Waves approaching the shore-
line experience shoaling because of the decreasing water depth, and
shoaling processes create asymmetries in the shape of the incoming
waves and the associated orbital velocity field. The asymmetry initially
develops about the horizontal axis (termed wave skewness) such that
wave crests become higher and narrower and the onshore-directed or-
bital velocities under wave crests increase in magnitude and decrease in
duration. Wave troughs become shallower and longer causing weaker,
but more prolonged offshore-directed orbital velocities. Ruessink et al.
(2012) obtained a relationship between the magnitude of the wave
orbital velocity skewness and the Ursell number, defined as:
HL2
Ur ¼
h3
where H is wave height, L is wave length and h is water depth. When Ur
increases above 10, near-bed (onshore-directed) velocity skewness
begins to increase (Ruessink et al., 2012) and for further increases in
Ur, skewness reaches a maximum for Ur ≈ 100 subsequent to which
it decreases. Maximum velocity skewness typically occurs close to the
wave breakpoint.
Since sediment transport is a nonlinear function of fluid velocity,
velocity skewness associated with wave shoaling tends to cause net
onshore-directed transport of sediment when integrated over a wave
cycle. However, boundary layer processes caused by, for example,
wave ripples or larger bedforms may introduce complexities to the sim-
ple relationship between fluid velocity and (suspended) sediment
transport. Steep wave ripples often cause phase lags between (orbital)
velocity, u(t), and sediment concentration, c(t), through the ejection
and subsequent vertical convection of sediment-laden vortices at
times of flow reversal (Vincent and Green, 1990; Doucette, 2000;
Greenwood and Xu, 2001; van der Werf et al., 2007) and in some
cases the phase lags may be sufficiently large such that the net transport
over a wave cycle is directed against the incoming waves (Osborne
and Greenwood, 1993). Complexities can also be introduced by strong
wave-current interaction; if waves are opposed by an offshore di-
rected mean current, the net oscillatory wave-induced transport
may be offshore-directed because total bed shear stresses are larger
under wave troughs than under wave crests even though the wave
shapes are onshore-skewed.
When the incoming waves break because of decreasing water
depth, velocity skewness begins to decrease but the breaking process-
es introduce additional surface-generated turbulence into the water
column (Puleo et al., 2000) and this may reach the seabed and gener-
ate large additional Reynolds-stresses particularly under plunging
breakers (Aagaard and Hughes, 2010). Hence, more sediment may
be mobilized on the onshore wave stroke than on the offshore stroke
such that an onshore directed net oscillatory transport is preserved
even in cases when velocity skewness becomes small (Aagaard and
Jensen, 2013).
Net oscillatory transport of sediment by the incoming waves is ei-
ther augmented or opposed by transport due to (quasi-) steady
ð4Þ
currents. In shallow water, the wave orbital diameter depends on dis-
tance above the sea bed; the diameter is larger under a wave crest
than under a wave trough which results in net onshore displacement
of fluid mass over a wave cycle. The fluid mass transport, the speed of
which is termed (Lagrangian) Stokes drift is maximum at the water
surface; it cannot be measured using instruments that are fixed in
space but it can be readily calculated from second order wave theory
(e.g. Svendsen, 2006). Stokes drift decreases towards the seabed
where it can attain velocities of several cms per second and since sed-
iment concentrations may be large near the bed, Stokes drift can con-
tribute significantly to (onshore) transport of sediment. However,
under breaking waves in shallow water the vertical structure of the
Lagrangian mass transport is not well known. Second order wave the-
ory does not apply to breaking waves and surf bores and only works
well when the ratio of water depth to wave length, h/L > 0.05
(Svendsen, 2006).
The Stokes drift feeds a near-bed (Eulerian) offshore return cur-
rent, the undertow, which ensures cross-shore mass continuity and
which has its maximum near the seabed. Seaward of the wave
breakpoint, Stokes drift and undertow are largely balanced in the ver-
tical (Lentz and Fewings, 2012) but near the seabed where sediment
is transported, the net steady flow and the mean sediment transport
 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50
is usually offshore directed because of the different vertical structure
of undertow and Stokes drift.
Within the surf zone, undertow is enhanced significantly because of
the added contribution of onshore mass transport in the upper part of
the water column by wave breaking and surf bores/rollers (Svendsen,
1984). Since undertow is maximum near the bed where the steady
flow can attain large velocities, up to U ≈ −0.5 m s−1 (the minus
sign signifies an offshore-directed flow), this current is critical to sedi-
ment transport in the surf zone. The speed of the undertow depends
on the negative cross-shore gradient of wave radiation stress and this
gradient depends partly on beach slope; for given wave conditions,
the undertow is stronger on steeply sloping beaches than on gently
sloping beaches (Longuet-Higgins, 1983; Aagaard et al., 2002). Hence,
there is a strong feedback between morphology and the amount of sed-
iment carried by the undertow and thus ultimately the direction of net
sediment transport. Landward of the wave breakpoint, the mean
(current-induced) sediment transport often significantly exceeds net
(onshore-directed) transport due to oscillatory motions such that the
total net transport (i.e. the sum of the oscillatory and the mean trans-
port components) is offshore-directed.
Undertow is the main offshore-directed flow in the surf zone
when the morphology/bathymetry is quasi-linear alongshore. When
this is not the case (e.g. on intermediate-state beaches with signifi-
cant alongshore rhythmicity), undertow is replaced by rip circulation
where the offshore flow takes place in rip channels and current
speeds may be U > − 1 m s−1 (Brander and Short, 2000). Rip feeder
currents carry water and sediment alongshore toward rip channels
and the horizontal circulation cells are completed by onshore directed
mean flow across shoals or bar horns located between rip channels
(Aagaard et al., 1998, 2006). The speed of the onshore directed flow
across bars may be of the same order of magnitude as the offshore di-
rected rip current (MacMahan et al., 2005) and the sediment trans-
port carried by this flow can drive the bar onshore.
While oscillatory transport by incoming waves and mean trans-
port by steady currents are the two first-order components involved
in cross-shore sediment transport on the shoreface, oscillatory flows
due to long infragravity waves constitute an important third compo-
nent. Contrasting reports have emerged on the relative magnitude
and directional attributes of the infragravity wave transport contribu-
tion. In relatively deep water seaward of the breakpoint, net oscillato-
ry infragravity transport typically constitutes only a minor fraction of
the total net transport and it is directed offshore (Ruessink et al.,
1998). This offshore directed infragravity transport on the lower
shoreface arises because the incoming shoaling wind waves (or
swell) consist of wave groups where sequences of high waves are
separated by sequences of lower waves, and these (short) incident
wave groups force long, bound infragravity waves. The sequences of
large wind/swell waves increase sediment stirring at the bed and
the sediment is advected offshore by the bound long wave troughs
that are phase-locked to the sequences of large wind/swell waves
(Shi and Larsen, 1984). Crests of bound long waves that are associated
with sequences of smaller wind/swell waves cause an onshore trans-
port, but this is of smaller magnitude because of less sediment
stirring.
As the wave breakpoint is approached, shoaling processes cause
increased ‘unlocking’ of the long and short wave components such
that an increasing phase shift appears and within the surf zone on
the upper shoreface, energy is transferred from the breaking incident
(wind/swell) waves to free infragravity motions which are distinct
from the forced long waves occurring seaward of the breakpoint.
The height of surf zone infragravity waves may be nearly as large as
the local wind/swell wave height (Beach and Sternberg, 1988;
Ruessink, 2010) and because of the long wave periods ensuring
strong reflection from the beach, surf zone infragravity waves are typ-
ically cross-shore standing, consisting of the sum of incoming and
outgoing wave components. Net oscillatory suspended sediment
37
transport rates associated with these free infragravity waves have in
some cases been found negligible (Ruessink et al., 1998; Conley and
Beach, 2003), and in other cases, infragravity wave transport exceeds
both incoming wave transport and mean transport (Beach and
Sternberg, 1991; Russell, 1993). Surf zone infragravity waves can
transport sediment either onshore or offshore. In the inner surf
zone of a dissipative beach, Houser and Greenwood (2007) found
that net infragravity sediment fluxes were large and the net flux di-
rection depended on the position relative to the breakpoint. When in-
coming waves broke seaward of a bar crest, the net infragravity
transport (at the bar crest) was directed onshore and forced an on-
shore migration of the bar. When waves broke landward of the bar
crest the net infragravity transport component at the bar crest was di-
rected offshore.
Thus, total net cross-shore suspended sediment transport at any
given position in the nearshore is perceived as consisting predominant-
ly of the sum of the three transport components discussed above:
(a) net oscillatory transport due to incoming wind waves and swell
that mainly, but not always, is directed onshore; (b) mean transport
due to the combination of steady flows (undertow, Stokes drift, rip
cell circulation) that mainly, but not always, is directed offshore, and
(c) net oscillatory transport due to infragravity waves that may be di-
rected either way within the surf zone, whilst net infragravity transport
tends to be directed offshore on the lower shoreface. The largest trans-
port rates occur in the bottom 5 or 10 cm of the water column (Conley
and Beach, 2003) where sediment concentrations are the largest.
Furthermore, sediment fluxes may be vertically segregated with oscilla-
tory (onshore directed) fluxes dominating in the very near-bed region
where phase coupling between u(t) and c(t) is large and positive,
while mean fluxes may dominate at higher elevations because of in-
creasing current speed and decreasing phase coupling with distance
from the boundary.
5. Dissipative beaches
Under dissipative conditions, breaking waves are mainly spilling
and wave energy is transferred continuously from wind/swell wave
frequencies to infragravity waves through a wide surf zone while
low-frequency waves become energetic near the shoreline. This trans-
fer of energy and the ensuing oscillatory sediment fluxes are illustrated
in Fig. 6 which displays measurements from high-energy conditions at
Skallingen. Five instrument stations recorded velocity and sediment
concentration and all stations were located well within the surf zone.
At the outer edge of the instrument array on the seaward slope of a
nearshore bar, the cross-shore velocity spectrum was dominated by a
peak at f ≈ 0.10 Hz corresponding to the incoming wind waves and
the fraction of energy at low frequencies was small. As waves
progressed further landward and broke over the bar crest and into
the trough, the spectral peak due to wind waves gradually diminished
while energy at low frequencies (f b 0.05 Hz) gradually increased to
the extent that infragravity energy was totally dominant at the land-
ward two stations on the inner bar.
Sediment concentrations measured at a nominal z = 5 cm were
used to generate the cospectra of oscillatory cross-shore transport also
plotted in Fig. 6. The cospectra are marked by the spatial shift of the pre-
dominant wave type and they illustrate the onshore progression from
wind wave- dominated to infragravity-dominated oscillatory transport.
At the outer edge of the array, large positive (i.e. onshore-directed) net
sediment fluxes occurred across a broad spectral band between f =
0.1–0.2 Hz. This net transport driven by the wind waves gradually
diminished towards the beach and at the inner two stations, sediment
fluxes at infragravity frequencies were entirely dominant, but directed
oppositely at those two locations at the crest of the inner bar and at
the base of the beach face, respectively.
The frequently observed importance of infragravity waves to oscil-
latory transport on dissipative beaches is further illustrated in Fig. 7
38 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50

Fig. 6. Autospectra of cross-shore velocity (black) and cospectra of net cross-shore oscillatory suspended sediment transport (red) across the inner surf zone at the dissipative beach
of Skallingen during a storm on November 5, 1996. Positive cospectral values indicate an onshore net oscillatory transport at that particular frequency and the horizontal dashed
line in the plot of the beach profile marks the mean water level at the time of recording. All spectra have 50 degrees of freedom.

where sediment transport was measured at two stations on the seaward
slope and crest of a nearshore bar at Burley Beach. Conditions were
strongly dissipative and 9–10 surf bores were observed simultaneously
propagating across a very wide surf zone (Aagaard and Greenwood,
1995). Breaking wave dissipation decreased spectral variance in the
incoming wave band (f > 0.067 Hz) by 52% between the two measure-
ment stations, which were separated by 25 m in the cross-shore, while
spectral variance in the infragravity band (f b 0.067 Hz) at the same
time increased by 154%. Net oscillatory sediment fluxes at wind wave
frequencies were onshore-directed and large at the outer station on
the lakeward slope of the middle bar but had all but disappeared at
the bar crest, whilst net fluxes at infragravity frequencies were a factor
2 larger at the inner station. The infragravity fluxes were directionally
opposed at the two measurement locations.
Hence, sediment transport by low-frequency waves is often large on
dissipative beaches and occasionally these waves may be the most
important sediment transport component, even exceeding the trans-
port due to mean flows. Similar observations were made on dissipative
beaches in Oregon (Beach and Sternberg, 1988, 1991), in Cornwall, UK
(Russell, 1993) and in later experiments at Burley Beach (Houser and
Greenwood, 2005a,b). As illustrated in Figs. 6 and 7, low-frequency
fluxes can be directed either onshore or offshore in the surf zone; an ex-
planation for such opposing low-frequency sediment fluxes is that the
long waves act as advective mechanisms for sediment suspended main-
ly by incident wave breaking (Aagaard and Greenwood, 2008). When
turbulence caused by wave breaking significantly increases local bed
shear stresses and suspended sediment concentrations, for example
near a bar crest, long waves may advect the suspended sediment
away from the bar crest on the wave stroke directed away from the sed-
iment suspension maximum at the bar crest with less sediment being
returned toward the bar crest on the opposite wave stroke back to-
wards the bar crest, because sediment is continuously settling out of

Fig. 7. Autospectra of cross-shore velocity (black) and cospectra of net cross-shore oscillatory suspended sediment transport (red) across a nearshore bar at the dissipative Burley
Beach; October 16, 1992. Positive cospectral values indicate an onshore directed net oscillatory transport at that particular frequency and the horizontal dashed line in the beach
profile plot marks the mean water level at the time of recording. All spectra have 50 degrees of freedom.
 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50
the water column and smaller amounts of sediment are picked up away
from the bar crest.
Undertow is often relatively weak on dissipative beaches com-
pared to intermediate beaches because bathymetric gradients are
typically smaller. Hence, for similar wave conditions, cross-shore ra-
diation stresses and wave set-up gradients tend to be smaller on dis-
sipative beaches and the speed of the offshore current is then also
smaller and less variable in a spatial sense compared to intermediate
beaches. Model-predicted undertow speeds for the dissipative beach
at Skallingen and the intermediate beach of Vejers are shown in
Fig. 8. Cross-shore wave transformation and depth-averaged mean
current speed were predicted using the monochromatic Battjes/
Janssen wave transformation model and assuming an offshore signif-
icant wave height of Hs = 3.5 m with a wave period of T = 7.5 s.
While the average shoreface slope is almost similar for the two
beaches, nearshore bars are much larger and steeper at Vejers and
the troughs are deeper. The simulations show that undertow speeds
at Skallingen are relatively small (U > − 0.15 m s−1 for the selected
boundary conditions) whereas maximum speeds at Vejers are up to
twice as large over bar crests and much more spatially variable with
only weak currents in the deep troughs between bars.
Two sets of field measurements of near-bed undertow at
Skallingen are shown in Fig. 9; one case in which the nearshore pro-
file was very flat during an experiment in 2000 (Fig. 9A) while data in
Fig. 9B was recorded during an experiment with more accentuated
bathymetric relief. The measurements were conducted during high
energy conditions and the data represent steady current speeds
which were temporally averaged for periods of 30–60 h. The event-
averaged offshore significant wave heights were Hs = 3.06 m (for
the upper panel) and Hs = 1.73 m (for the lower panel) with periods
of Tp = 8.7 s and 8.1 s. Note the elevated water levels that were gen-
erated by storm surges, especially in Fig. 9A. Wave measurements
at the instrument stations on the seaward bar slopes yielded Ω =
6.6 ± 1.5 and Ω = 8.8 ± 2.1 for the two cases, consistent with dissi-
pative conditions. Given the high energy levels, undertow was rela-
tively weak across the nearshore bars, U = − 0.15–0.2 m s−1 and
spatial homogeneity was quite high which is in general agreement
with the model predictions from Skallingen shown in Fig. 8.
The spatial distributions of sediment fluxes due to steady currents,
wind/swell waves and infragravity waves for the same two wave events
are shown in Fig. 10. Sediment transport magnitudes were the smallest
at the outer edge of the measurement arrays and increased landward
where smaller water depths allowed breaker-generated turbulence to
reach the bed, causing larger sediment loads even though near-bed
Fig. 8. The upper panel shows model-predicted undertow speeds at Skallingen (dissipative beach; red line) and Vejers (intermediate beach; black line) with offshore boundary
conditions of Hs = 3.5 m and T = 7.5 s. The cross-shore bathymetric profiles are shown in the lower panel for reference.
39
orbital velocities remained constant or decreased in a landward direc-
tion. Total net (offshore directed) sediment fluxes at the outer stations
on the seaward slope of the subtidal bar were smaller for the storm
surge situation (Fig. 10A) and individual record-burst averages were
in fact often landward directed at this position. This was probably
caused by the subdued profile exhibiting gentler slopes compared
to the more pronounced bathymetry in the lower panel (Fig. 10B).
Event-averaged total net fluxes, being the sum of oscillatory and mean
components (4; Fig. 10) were everywhere offshore directed and the
largest component was the mean transport (3) driven by the steady un-
dertow currents. Although net infragravity fluxes (1) intermittently
dominated for a few hours at locations within the intertidal zone, that
was not reflected in the event-scale averages partly because infragravity
fluxes were not directionally consistent over time. For a given measure-
ment location, net infragravity fluxes were often landward directed at
low tide and seaward directed at high tide, or vice versa, associated
with cross-shore displacement of a local energy dissipation/sediment
suspension maximum over tidal cycles and hence oppositely directed
infragravity sediment advection at low and high tide (Aagaard and
Greenwood, 2008) and this resulted in small net fluxes when averaged
over tidal cycles, or through entire storm events. Net sediment fluxes
due to incoming wind waves (2) were always landward directed but
generally smaller in magnitude compared to mean fluxes. The spatial
distribution of the total net fluxes (4) follows a relatively simple pattern
exhibiting an almost consistent decrease in a seaward direction and, av-
eraged over time, cross-shore sediment transport gradients were not
large under these dissipative process and bathymetry conditions.
These net sediment transport patterns strongly resemble those ob-
served over a subdued inner bar at Duck, USA (Beach and Sternberg,
1996) where cross-shore transport gradients were also small; however,
absolute flux magnitudes were considerably smaller than for the
large-wave situations depicted in Fig. 10.
6. Intermediate beaches: 2D bathymetry
Under dissipative conditions, cross-shore oscillatory motions and
suspended sediment transport may be dominated by infragravity
wave frequencies, particularly near the shoreline. This is rarely the
case on intermediate beaches. The deep troughs on such intermediate-
state beaches allow incoming wind waves to reform and re-shoal be-
tween bars, and/or between the inner bar and the shoreline (Fig. 4).
Hence, surf zone dissipation of incoming wave energy is proportionally
less than on a dissipative beach and spectra of surface elevation
and cross-shore velocity are usually dominated by wind/swell wave
40 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50
Fig. 9. Cross-shore distribution of event-averaged undertow speeds for two situations
with different bathymetry at Skallingen. Panel (A) represents measurements averaged
over two storm events on October 23–29, 2000 (63 h in total) and data in panel
(B) was recorded on October 27–28, 1996 for a period of 30 h. Negative current speeds
are offshore directed. Vertical bars indicate ± 1 standard deviation of the current
speeds. Horizontal lines in the plots of profile bathymetry signify the maximum and
minimum mean water levels during the periods of recording. Vertical and horizontal
scales are identical in the two bathymetry plots.
frequencies and sediment fluxes at infragravity frequencies remain sub-
ordinate to wind/swell wave fluxes. An example is illustrated in Fig. 11
where field measurements from a storm event at Staengehus Beach are
plotted. The offshore significant wave height was estimated to be Hs =
2 m and waves were plunging on the seaward slopes of all three bars
and reformed in troughs. At the instrument stations which were located
across the two inner bars and the intervening trough, wave motions at
incident wave frequencies were dominant, even at the innermost sta-
tion on the crest of the inner bar where the mean water depth was
h = 0.9 m. This is essentially similar to the water depth at the two
inner stations at the dissipative beach, depicted in Fig. 6 and where
the spectra were dominated by low frequencies. The cospectra of
cross-shore suspended sediment fluxes on the intermediate beach are
also dominated by motions at wind wave frequencies and they all
exhibit positive (onshore directed) cospectral peaks, except for the
position in the trough where waves reformed from breaking to non-
breaking waves and bed shear stresses were small. Net infragravity
fluxes were only significant at bar crests but were directed offshore
for the measurements at the inner bar crest, and onshore at the middle
bar. These observations are consistent with Conley and Beach (2003);
their measurements of sediment fluxes on the seaward slope of a bar
in an intermediate state at Duck, N.C., USA showed that net infragravity
fluxes were small in comparison to wind/swell wave fluxes, and con-
tributed less than 20% of the net oscillatory sediment transport.
On intermediate-state beaches, waves most often break through
plunging on bars and at the shorebreak at the toe of the beach
Fig. 10. Cross-shore distribution of suspended sediment fluxes for the same two situa-
tions that are displayed in Fig. 9. Fluxes were recorded at z = 5 cm and positive fluxes
are onshore directed. Columns 1 represent net infragravity wave fluxes, 2 is net sedi-
ment fluxes due to wind waves, 3 represents the sediment flux due to steady currents
and 4 is the total net sediment flux. Horizontal bars indicate ± 1 standard deviation.
Measurements were averaged over 63 h in the upper panel and for 30 h in the lower
panel. The maximum and minimum mean water levels during these periods are indi-
cated by the horizontal dashed lines in the bathymetry plots. Sediment fluxes (Q) are
stated in kg m−2 s−2. The vertical and horizontal scales are identical in the two
bathymetry plots.
(Wright and Short, 1984) and plunging waves may inject high levels
of surface-generated turbulence deep into the water column and affect
the suspension of sediment. Fig. 12A shows extracts of time series of
cross-shore (u) and vertical (w) velocities and near-bed (z = 5 cm)
sediment concentrations (c) near the plunge point on an inner bar at
Vejers. The time series exhibit high positive correlation (phase cou-
pling) between u(t) and c(t) such that large concentrations were asso-
ciated with onshore velocities, although not necessarily with the largest
onshore velocities. However, concentrations were disproportionately
large when breaker turbulence, indicated by large (negative) vertical
velocities (e.g. at t = 2013, 2065), was observed near the seabed.
Large vertical velocities, typically associated with the generation of
plunging jets near wave crests, produce large Reynolds stresses (Scott
et al., 2009) which serve to suspend large amounts of sand (Aagaard
and Hughes, 2010).
The panels in Fig. 12B illustrate ensemble-averaged cross-shore
velocities and near-bed sediment concentrations under both plunging
and gently spilling breakers for a position on the seaward slope of an
inner bar at Vejers. All waves in a time series (n ≈ 700) were
extracted and re-plotted on a time scale which is normalized with re-
spect to wave phase, t/T, and sediment concentrations were normal-
ized with respect to the largest ensemble-averaged concentration.
The velocity trace of the spilling waves had a more sawtooth-
shaped appearance, expressing an asymmetry about the vertical axis
 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50 41

Fig. 11. Autospectra of cross-shore velocity (black) and cospectra of net cross-shore oscillatory suspended sediment transport (red) across the surf zone at the intermediate-state
beach of Staengehus; October 15, 1998. Positive cospectral values indicate an onshore net oscillatory transport at that particular frequency and the horizontal dashed line in the plot
of the beach profile indicates the mean water level at the time of recording. All spectra have 50 degrees of freedom.

which is expected since they were surf bores. The figure shows that the
phase coupling of u(t) and c(t) was much more pronounced under the
plunging waves which exhibited less vertical asymmetry. When incom-
ing waves were plunging near the instrument station, large sediment
concentrations occurred at wave crests when turbulence was periodi-
cally injected into the water column while concentrations were signifi-
cantly smaller in wave troughs. This produced large onshore directed
net oscillatory sediment fluxes by the wind waves. In contrast, sediment
concentrations under the spilling waves were almost constant with re-
spect to wave phase, and net oscillatory fluxes were small. Under gently
spilling waves, surface-generated turbulence is spatially restricted to
the upper levels of the water column and breaker vortices tend not to
reach the bed (Christensen and Deigaard, 2001).
Note that sediment concentrations in Fig. 12B are normalized rel-
ative to the maximum concentration within the ensemble-averaged
wave cycle; the plots do not suggest that time-averaged sediment
concentrations over a wave cycle were larger for the spilling waves
(the opposite was in fact the case). Moreover, it should be empha-
sized that the data were obtained for different wave conditions but
at the same cross-shore position and with identical mean sand grain
size (medium sand, Mz = 245 μm).
Model-predicted undertow is often stronger on intermediate
beaches than on dissipative beaches (Fig. 8) because of larger bathy-
metric gradients. Field measurements of cross-shore steady flow ve-
locities at Vejers and Staengehus are presented in Fig. 13. Steady
flows were averaged for storm events lasting 40 h on the tideless
beach at Staengehus (visually estimated breaker heights, Hb = 1.5–
2 m), and 46 h at Vejers, where the event-averaged offshore signifi-
cant wave height was Hs = 2.07 m. Wave records from the seaward
bar slopes yield Ω = 5.2 ± 2.1 and Ω = 4.5 ± 1.3 for the two
cases, consistent with intermediate (LBT) morphodynamic conditions
at the bars in question. Cross-shore gradients in the steady flow were Fig. 12. (A) Time series of cross-shore (u; solid line) and vertical (w; dashed line) wave
much larger for these intermediate beaches than for the dissipative orbital velocities, and suspended sediment concentrations (c) at z ≈ 5 cm above the
bed near the plunge point on the intermediate-state beach of Vejers; October 4, 2006.
beach shown in Fig. 9. The largest event-averaged currents occurred (B) Ensemble-averaged cross-shore velocities and sediment concentrations for spilling
at bar crests where U ≈ − 0.30 m s−1 and the largest mean current (dashed lines) and plunging (solid lines) breakers at Vejers. Concentrations are normal-
speed observed during an individual 45-minute record burst was ized with respect to the maximum ensemble-averaged concentration in the wave cycle.
42 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50
U = −0.54 m s−1 at Vejers and − 0.40 m s−1 at Staengehus. Cross-
shore current speeds were small in the troughs, U b − 0.15 m s−1.
Because of the large spatial gradients in hydrodynamic processes
on intermediate beaches, gradients in net cross-shore sediment
transport are also large (Fig. 14). Sediment fluxes were measured at
Staengehus for the same period of time as the data shown in Fig. 13.
The wave breaking patterns were typical for a multi-barred interme-
diate beach. At times of maximum incoming wave height, the waves
broke through plunging on the lower seaward slope of the middle
bar near the outer instrument station, while at times of lower wave
energy, the breaker zone was located on the upper seaward slope of
this bar. After breaking on the middle bar, waves reformed in the
deep trough and broke again on the lower seaward slope of the
inner bar.
Cross-shore sediment transport was everywhere dominated by
the offshore-directed component due to the steady flow, except at
the outermost station where the offshore transport was almost bal-
anced by the onshore-directed wind wave-driven transport compo-
nent. Net infragravity fluxes across the profile were both onshore
and offshore directed, and even in shallow water depths close to the
shoreline they were subordinate to both the steady current and the
wind wave fluxes.
Fewer instrument stations were deployed in the inner surf zone at
the intermediate Vejers Beach (Fig. 15) but the measurements display
trends that are similar to those shown in Fig. 14. Large offshore directed
mean fluxes were dominant at all stations, wind wave-driven transport
was onshore directed and event-averaged infragravity fluxes were
Fig. 13. Cross-shore distribution of event-averaged undertow speeds for storm events
at (A) Vejers (in October 2006) and (B) Staengehus (in October 1998). Negative
current speeds are offshore directed. Vertical bars indicate ± 1 standard deviation of
the current speeds. Horizontal lines in the plots of profile bathymetry signify the max-
imum and minimum mean water levels during the periods of recording. The vertical
and horizontal scales are identical in the two bathymetry plots.
small. Total net sediment fluxes were large on bars and negligible in
troughs; large offshore-directed net transports during high wave condi-
tions drive bars seaward at Vejers (Aagaard et al., 2008; Aagaard, 2011)
and at Staengehus (Aagaard et al., 2001).
The data in Figs. 14 and 15 both clearly show that local transport
minima occur in troughs between bars and this was also observed
by Ruessink et al. (1998) in the deep troughs at the modally interme-
diate state beach at Terschelling, the Netherlands. In troughs, weak
undertow (Fig. 13), reforming waves, small vertical mixing lengths
due to relatively small ratios of wave height to water depth (H/h)
and a lack of surface-generated turbulence all combine to reduce
near-bed sediment concentrations. Moreover, the increased water
depths tend to reduce bed shear stresses which promote the develop-
ment of wave ripples thus serving to reduce the correlation between
u(t) and c(t). Consequently, sediment transport is small.
The sediment transport rates shown in the foregoing figures all
exhibit net offshore transport when averaged over the periods of
data collection because the examples have been selected to illustrate
processes occurring during high energy conditions on dissipative and
(2D) intermediate beaches. Hence, the data do not provide under-
standing of the sediment transport processes occurring when sedi-
ment is transported onshore and when down-state morphological
transitions occur, for example during a transition from a dissipative
to an intermediate beach state. The relative wave height (H/h) is fre-
quently employed as a predictive quantity for the rate and direction
of net sediment transport in the field, and it is a general perception
that total net transport is onshore directed for low values of this pa-
rameter (occurring when waves are non- or only weakly breaking),
while net offshore transport occurs for higher H/h-ratios that prevail
when waves are more strongly breaking and undertow becomes sig-
nificant. Fig. 16 illustrates total net sediment fluxes observed at posi-
tions near bar crests during the entire duration of field experiments at
Skallingen, Vejers and Staengehus. All data from a given instrument
station were averaged within discrete relative wave height bins.
To some extent, the data exhibit the expected trend with small
onshore-directed net sediment transports for small H/h and large off-
shore transport rates for larger H/h. However, there are three points
worthy of notice: i) The cross-over from onshore- to offshore-directed
net fluxes does not occur at the same H/h-ratios at the different beaches.
Even during the same experiment at Skallingen, the reversal from
onshore- to offshore-directed sediment fluxes occurred for different
H/h-ratios at the two measurement positions, ii) Although Skallingen
and Vejers are both exposed to the North Sea and offshore storm
wave heights are rather similar, the latter (intermediate) beach exhibits
much larger rates of sediment flux over the inner bar, and iii) When the
relative wave height becomes very large, another cross-over occurs and
net sediment fluxes again become directed onshore. This second rever-
sal again occurs at different H/h-ratios for different beaches and for
different positions within the profile. It occurs sooner for dissipative
beaches than for intermediate beaches and may cause landward bar
migration during storm conditions at Skallingen (Aagaard et al., 2004)
due to weak undertow, large onshore infragravity transport at bar crests
and very high positive phase coupling between u(t) and c(t) resulting in
large onshore sediment fluxes driven by the wind waves. An extreme
example of such positive phase coupling is shown in Fig. 17 where
data was obtained at a bar crest during a storm surge at Skallingen.
The relative wave height during this 3-min time series slice was
Hs/h = 0.62 and almost every wave crest resulted in a large burst of
suspended sediment whereas sediment concentrations were low
when oscillatory velocity was offshore directed in wave troughs.
7. Intermediate beaches: 3D bathymetry
When an (inner) nearshore bar occupies a position in which the
water depth over the bar crest is relatively small, it tends to develop
rhythmic, or alongshore non-uniform, bathymetry and intermediate
 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50 43

Fig. 14. Cross-shore distribution of suspended sediment fluxes at Staengehus for the same storm event as the one represented by Fig. 13B. Fluxes were recorded at z = 5 cm and positive
fluxes are onshore directed. Columns 1 represent net infragravity wave fluxes, 2 is net sediment fluxes due to wind waves, 3 represents the sediment flux due to steady currents and 4 is the
total net sediment flux. Horizontal bars indicate ± 1 standard deviation. Measurements were averaged for 40 h. Sediment fluxes (Q) are stated in kg m−2 s−2. MWL is mean water level.

beaches in the RBB and TBR states exhibit (inner) bars that are cres-
centic, or transverse, respectively. Within these morphological states,
hydrodynamic process assemblages alternate alongshore with dissi-
pative assemblages dominating across shoals/bar horns and more
reflective assemblages in rip embayments (Wright and Short, 1984)
and the steady current circulation becomes horizontally segregated.
The undertow, which is prevalent on dissipative and 2D intermediate
beaches, is increasingly replaced by rip current circulation (MacMahan
et al., 2005) and this change in steady flow regime comes about because
1) alongshore set-up gradients exceed cross-shore set-up gradients
since wave breaking predominantly occurs over shoals and/or 2) as
bars migrate onshore, the increasingly shallow water depths over the
shoals/bar crests inhibit seaward return flow and the mass of water
carried onshore by the surf bores flows alongshore instead, converging
at depressions of the bar surface where the fluid mass returns seaward
as a rip current.
The net transport of suspended sediment generally follows the di-
rection of the steady currents, at least when the current reaches a cer-
tain magnitude, and transport tends to be onshore directed over
shoals (Aagaard et al., 1998, 2006; MacMahan et al., 2005) and offshore
directed in rip channels (Aagaard et al., 1997). In a study involving
streamer trap field measurements on Palm Beach, NSW, Australia
along with numerical sediment transport modelling, Brander (1999a)
showed that when the bar was in a TBR state, net sediment transport
was large and offshore directed in rip channels and it was carried almost
exclusively by the steady flow, while there was little sediment mobiliza-
tion in rip feeder channels even though steady flows were significant.
Since wave dissipation across the shoal to seaward was strong, wave
heights and hence sediment stirring was small in the feeder channels
and sediment carried across the bar into the trough/rip feeder channel
was deposited and as a consequence, the trough gradually infilled as
the beach evolved toward the LTT state. Measurements of sediment
flux from OBS sensors in a rip neck at the TBR Bennett's Beach, NSW,
Australia (Greenwood et al., 2009) also exhibited transport dominance
by the mean rip current flow.
At Skallingen, 3D morphology develops on the inner bar(s) during
low or moderate energy conditions. However, because of large rates of
longshore sediment transport, the bars do not become clearly crescentic
or transverse, but instead exhibit a quasi-linear shape such that straight
or oblique bars/shoals are dissected by straight or alongshore-skewed

Fig. 15. Cross-shore distribution of suspended sediment fluxes at Vejers for the same storm event as the one represented by Fig. 13a. Fluxes were recorded at z = 5 cm and positive
fluxes are onshore directed. Columns 1 represent net infragravity wave fluxes, 2 is net sediment fluxes due to wind waves, 3 represents the sediment flux due to steady currents and
4 is the total net sediment flux. Horizontal bars indicate ± 1 standard deviation. Measurements were averaged over 46 h. Sediment fluxes (Q) are stated in kg m−2 s−2. HT is high
tide and LT is low tide levels during the period of measurements.
44 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50
Fig. 16. Net sediment fluxes at z ≈ 5 cm as a function of local relative wave height, Hs/h.
All observations from a given instrument station for the entire duration of a field
experiment were averaged within relative wave height bins. The coloured lines are
from the experiment in 2000 at Skallingen and were collected at x = 165 m (blue line)
and x = 135 m (red line); refer to Fig. 10a for locations. The solid line with circles
represent measurements from Staengehus in 1998 (x = 170 m, see Fig. 14) and the
dashed line with diamonds represent measurements from Vejers in 2006 (x = 305 m,
see Fig. 15).
rip channels. Fig. 18 illustrates measurements obtained across a bar
shoal between rip channels during three tidal cycles at Skallingen
when horizontally segregated steady current circulation was observed.
Near the breakpoint on the seaward slope of the outer bar in the profile,
Ω = 4.3 ± 0.8 which is commensurate with an RBB state (Short, 1999).
Onshore directed mean flows were observed over both bars, and partic-
ularly over the outer bar where onshore mean currents exceeded U =
+0.30 m s−1 during individual bursts. At positions away from the bar
crest, mean currents were weak. With respect to sediment fluxes,
these were also large and onshore directed at, or near bar crests and
negligible elsewhere. The total net sediment fluxes, which were mainly
driven by the steady current with a smaller, secondary contribution
from infragravity waves, caused a landward movement of the bar
(Aagaard et al., 1998).
8. Reflective beaches
On reflective beaches, swash zone sediment transport has been
widely studied in recent years on both sand (Masselink and Hughes,
1998: Masselink and Russell, 2006) and gravel beaches (e.g. Austin
and Masselink, 2006). However, very few field studies have been
made on the shoreface of reflective beaches.
Since the surf zone is narrow or non-existent at reflective beaches
and bars are absent, the lower shoreface extends to the wave plunge
Fig. 17. Three-minute time series of cross-shore velocity (black line; right-hand vertical axis) and near-bed sediment concentration (red line, left-hand vertical axis) on a bar crest
during storm surge conditions in 1996 on the dissipative beach at Skallingen.
point at the base of the step. Hence, suspended sediment transport
measurements made outside the breakpoint on any given beach
might be taken to represent an analogue for a reflective beach. Such
measurements were conducted on unbarred (but not necessarily reflec-
tive beaches) by Huntley and Hanes (1987), Osborne and Greenwood
(1992) and Masselink and Pattiaratchi (2000) using stacks of OBS sen-
sors located at z = 5 cm and above, coupled with one, or a few current
meters at higher elevations. The findings from these studies were in-
conclusive. In some cases, the net oscillatory transport component
(due to wind/swell waves) was found to be dominant and onshore di-
rected, leading to a net onshore transport of sand. In other cases, the
mean transport component due to steady currents was dominant
while the net oscillatory flux was small and offshore directed. These
conflicting findings may be at least partly explained by the presence
of ripples on the seabed which makes the location at which point
measurements are taken relative to a bedform critically important
since spatial heterogeneity of the seabed introduces horizontal hetero-
geneity to the transport of suspended sediment (Osborne and Vincent,
1996). Additionally, the smaller vertical mixing lengths (sediment
diffusivity) in the water column under nonbreaking waves relative to
breaking wave conditions (that dominate on dissipative and intermedi-
ate state beaches) cause significant vertical heterogeneity to the
suspended sediment transport (Vincent et al., 1991) and the pairing
of OBS sensors with current meters at different locations can introduce
measurement errors when mixing lengths are small (Ogston and
Sternberg, 1995; Austin and Masselink, 2008). High-resolution field
measurements made using ABS sensors (but paired with single current
meters) were reported by Vincent and Downing (1994) who found
that, averaged over the water column, onshore sediment transport by
incoming wind/swell waves was dominant under strongly shoaling
wave conditions but significant transport rates were confined to a
layer within 10 cm from the seabed.
One important difference between conditions seaward of the
breakpoint on a non-reflective beach and conditions a short distance
seaward of the beach face of a reflective beach lies in the effects of re-
flection of wave energy from the foreshore of the latter. Measurements
of suspended sediment transport on the shoreface of the reflective Pearl
Beach were made recently using high-resolution Pulse Coherent Acous-
tic Doppler profilers (PC-ADP's; Aagaard et al., 2012). Averaged over a
two-week long field experiment and assuming that wave heights
recorded on the lower shoreface were representative of breaking
wave heights, Ω = 1.7 ± 0.8 which is borderline between R and LTT
(Short, 1999).
The PC-ADP measures fluid velocities and sediment concentra-
tions at identical elevations above the seabed and such vertically
and horizontally co-located measurements overcome some of the
complexities associated with measuring sediment transport under
non-breaking waves and over rippled beds. Cross-shore velocity spec-
tra and cospectra from a single instrument burst at Pearl Beach are
shown in Fig. 19. During this burst, the inshore wave height at the
 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50 45

Fig. 18. Spatial distribution of cross-shore steady flows and suspended sediment fluxes at Skallingen during moderate energy conditions and with rhythmic intermediate-state mor-
phology in October, 1995. Fluxes were recorded at z = 5 cm and positive fluxes are onshore directed. In the upper panel, the vertical bars signify ± 1 standard deviations of current
speed. In the lower panel, column 1 represents net infragravity wave fluxes, 2 is net sediment fluxes due to wind waves, 3 represents the sediment flux due to steady currents and 4
is the total net sediment flux. Horizontal bars indicate ± 1 standard deviation. Measurements were averaged over 37 h. Sediment fluxes (Q) are stated in kg m−2 s−2.

instrument station was Hs = 0.42 m, Ω = 1.1 (fully reflective) and

the water depth was h = 2.0 m. The spectra represent measurements
at z = 2.4, 7.2 and 12 cm and they exhibit an orbital velocity peak
at f = 0.09 Hz, revealing the dominance of swell waves. There is
also a low, broad spectral peak at infragravity frequencies (f =
0.01–0.04 Hz), particularly at elevations some distance above the bed.
Spectral densities are larger at elevations away from the bed, indicating
the finite height of a wave boundary layer. The cospectra of suspended
sediment flux are consistent at all three elevations, exhibiting the classic
structure of net onshore sediment transport by the swell waves and
offshore transport by the infragravity waves. Since the infragravity
waves were in all likelihood bound long waves, the offshore transport
at low frequencies is consistent with earlier observations under
shoaling waves seaward of the breakpoint (Huntley and Hanes, 1987;
Osborne and Greenwood, 1992; Ruessink et al., 1998). While the mag-
nitude of the low-frequency sediment fluxes is not very different at
the three different elevations, fluxes at incident wave frequencies ex-
hibit a strong vertical dependency with much larger net sediment fluxes
immediately above the seabed which illustrates the vertical inhomoge-
neity and the relatively small sediment mixing lengths produced by
vortices ejected from wave ripples, which had a height of η = 7 cm at
the time of recording.
Suspended sediment fluxes averaged over a full tidal cycle, corre-
sponding to 24 instrument bursts are shown in Fig. 20. Fluxes are
shown for an elevation of z = 5.6 cm to maintain consistency with
the data presented from the dissipative and intermediate beaches. The
tidally-averaged wave height at the instrument was Hs = 0.45 m. A
weak undertow (U = 0 to −0.04 m s−1) carried sediment offshore
and this was augmented by a small net offshore flux by the bound
long waves. The incident swell carried suspended sediment on-
shore. For this position outside the surf zone on the lower shoreface
(h/L ≈ 0.05), waves were assumed conforming to nonlinear (second
order) wave theory, allowing calculation of the onshore mass transport
velocity (the Stokes drift). At z = 5.6 cm, the mass transport velocity Fig. 19. (A) Autospectra of cross-shore velocity at three different elevations and
(B) cospectra of net cross-shore oscillatory suspended sediment fluxes at the same eleva-
was estimated as Us ≈ +0.005 to +0.02 m s−1 and slightly smaller tions for a position seaward of the breakpoint at the reflective Pearl Beach at a depth of
than the measured (Eulerian) undertow and the sediment transport h = 2.0 m; June 18, 2011. Positive cospectral values indicate onshore net oscillatory
due to Stokes drift is calculated through multiplying velocity by the transport at that particular frequency. All spectra have 50 degrees of freedom.
46 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50
measured mean sediment concentration. As seen from Fig. 20, fluxes
due to undertow and Stokes drift were almost similar but oppositely
directed, and fluxes due to incident and infragravity waves were also al-
most similar and oppositely directed, such that the total net suspended
sediment flux (column 5) was onshore directed but very small.
It might have been assumed a priori that the oscillatory (incident)
wave motions carried more sand onshore such that the net (onshore)
transport rates were larger, since a reflective beach represents the
most accretive beach state. Moreover, the event-averaged Ursell
number (Eq. 3) was Ur = 123 which is close to the value at which or-
bital velocity skewness should be at a maximum (Ruessink et al.,
2012) and cause large rates of oscillatory onshore sediment transport.
However, as mentioned earlier, wave ripples tend to decrease (or
even reverse) oscillatory transport at incident wave frequencies and
additionally, measured skewness at incident wave frequencies was
in fact small and variable alongshore (Aagaard et al., 2012). Measured
wave reflection coefficients were large, R ≈ 0.60 and it is highly likely
that wave reflection from the beach face was involved in reducing
velocity skewness and hence onshore transport of sediment by the
incoming wind waves.
In comparison to measurements on dissipative and intermediate
beaches, the sediment transport rates observed on this reflective
beach were up to an order of magnitude smaller. Apart from small orbit-
al velocity skewness, suspended sediment concentrations and steady
current speeds are significantly smaller when the relative wave height
(and hence the bed shear stress) is small and it is also likely that the
generally coarser sediment present on reflective beaches serves to
reduce sediment concentrations suspended in the water column.
9. Discussion
The deployment of dense spatial measurement arrays permits ex-
amination of cross-shore transport patterns and gradients within a
range of beach states, the determination of which is required to fully un-
derstand the morphodynamic interactions and the morphological de-
velopment within and between beach states. The field measurements
described above have shown that on the temporal scale of storms or
tidal cycles, cross-shore sediment transport gradients are small on
dissipative beaches, and over the spatial extent of the cross-shore in-
strument arrays, (O(100 m)), the net transport patterns are rather
Fig. 20. Suspended sediment fluxes averaged over a tidal cycle at the reflective Pearl
Beach. Measurements were made outside the breakpoint at a mean water depth of
h = 2.33 m. Net fluxes were recorded at z = 5.6 cm and positive fluxes are onshore
directed. Column 1 represents infragravity wave fluxes, 2 is net sediment fluxes due
to swell waves, 3 represents the sediment flux due to steady currents and 4 is the
flux due to the Stokes drift. Column 5 is the total net sediment flux. Measurements
were averaged over 12.5 h. Sediment fluxes (Q) are given in kg m−2 s−2.
simple (Fig. 10). On the other hand, transport gradients are larger and
their spatial patterns are more complex on intermediate state beaches
because of the accentuated bathymetry (Fig. 14). This holds also for
cases when offshore wave energy inputs are relatively small (Fig. 18).
Moreover, for the same relative wave height, maxima in cross-shore
transport rates are larger on intermediate beaches than on dissipative
beaches, at least for the range of measurements reported here (Fig. 16).
On dissipative beaches, undertow is relatively weak because of
small gradients in the dissipation of incoming wave energy, and spa-
tial gradients in the undertow are small when the bathymetry is sub-
dued (Fig. 9). Energy contained in oscillatory motions at wind/swell
wave frequencies declines landward and wind/swell wave energy is
continuously fed to low-frequency infragravity motions (Fig. 5). If
near-bed sediment concentrations were similar across the surf zone,
the balance between transport due to steady currents and wind/
swell waves would cause a consistently decreasing net offshore trans-
port rate from points near the shoreline to the breaker zone, which is
broadly consistent with the pattern observed for the two cases in
Fig. 10. The secondary transport contribution from infragravity
waves may to some extent complicate this simple relationship, espe-
cially at positions close to bar crests and in shallow water where
infragravity transport rates can become significant because of the dif-
fusive effects of infragravity waves away from positions of intensified
wind/swell wave breaking (Aagaard and Greenwood, 2008).
On intermediate beaches where the bars are not strongly rhythmic
alongshore, for example in the LBT and incipient RBB states, cross-
shore transport is more complex. Incoming waves break on bars and
reform in troughs and the incomplete wave dissipation ensures that
infragravity waves do not grow to the same extent as on dissipative
beaches while incident wave energy on the other hand is still rela-
tively high close to the shoreline (Fig. 11). The large spatial gradients
in wave energy decay cause large gradients in undertow speed
(Fig. 13) and undertow speeds are locally larger (over bars) than on
dissipative beaches (Fig. 8) while they are small in troughs between
bars. The localized zones of wave breaking across bars also cause
large gradients in suspended sediment load as more sediment is
suspended when wave breaking is intensified. The emergence of
bedforms in (deep) troughs where bed shear stresses are relatively
low is a further complicating factor on intermediate beaches since
steep wave ripples tend to disrupt the positive phase coupling be-
tween oscillatory velocity and sediment concentration such that net
oscillatory transport becomes small, or may even become directed
against the waves (Vincent et al., 1991; Osborne and Vincent, 1996).
In combination, these processes drive a cross-shore segregated trans-
port pattern with large transport rates at bars and insignificant trans-
port rates in troughs (Figs. 14 and 15) such that nearshore bars
behave as separate identities with little sediment exchange between
them.
Only one instrument station was deployed on the reflective beach
studied here, but given the simple bathymetry there is no reason to
expect that significant cross-shore gradients in sediment transport
are prevalent on the shoreface of such beaches. The measurements
showed that net sediment transport rates are small because offshore
transport due to undertow and bound long waves is essentially bal-
anced by onshore transport due to wind waves and Stokes drift. On
the reflective beach, transport rates due to both waves and currents
were much smaller than for the dissipative and intermediate beaches
because of less sediment stirring and weak steady currents.
The observed spatial patterns of event-averaged suspended sedi-
ment transport under dissipative, intermediate and reflective condi-
tions allow some general statements to be made on the processes
driving nearshore morphology from one beach state to the next
(Fig. 21). For reasons of simplicity, we consider a single-barred
beach, corresponding to the model proposed by Wright and Short
(1984). Assume this beach can potentially exhibit the full spectrum
of morphologic beach states and let the beach be in the reflective
 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50 47

end state but subjected to increasing wave heights caused by a
lengthy storm event (panel R*). First, sediment is eroded from the
beach face and transported seaward to create a terrace at the toe of
the beach, i.e. a Low-Tide Terrace state (Short, 1979). This erosion
may occur because of strong backwash events associated with inten-
sified wave energy causing hydraulic jumps at the base of the beach
face or it may be due to small but intense rip currents emanating
from cusp bays (Aagaard et al., 2012). Seaward of the plunge point,
a small net landward transport may occur (Fig. 20), due to oscillatory
motions at wind/swell wave frequencies (since near the bed, onshore
transport due to Stokes drift cannot exceed offshore transport due to
undertow). Because water depth decreases near the shoreline as a
consequence of sediment transfer from the beach face, a surf zone de-
velops and a transport convergence is generated some distance away
from the beach face by the predominantly offshore directed transport
within the newly formed surf zone, and the onshore transport occur-
ring under the nonbreaking waves (associated with small relative
wave heights) seaward of the breakpoint (Fig. 16), panel LTT*. As
shown by Aagaard et al. (2008), offshore transport gradients in the
surf zone of the LTT state caused by local gradients in bed slope
over the terrace result in erosion of a trough and deposition further
seaward to create a nearshore bar of the LBT type (panel LBT*). A
positive feedback evolves between the developing bathymetry and
the zone of wave breaking; increasingly large bathymetry gradients
cause increasingly large process gradients, undertow speed increases
over bars and decreases in the deepening troughs, offshore sediment
transport rates carried by the current over bars increase, the transport
maximum is located at, or close to the bar crest and the bar moves
offshore, becoming larger and developing steeper landward and sea-
ward slopes. Sediment transport rates in the trough become negligi-
ble. However, if wave height increases swiftly, or when the bar
enters water depths where sediment stirring becomes less intense
such that the morphology is unable to evolve at the same rate as
the rate of wave height increase, the point where the rate of
cross-shore sediment transport is maximum may become displaced
further offshore and located seaward of the bar crest such that form
and process decouple. If such decoupling occurs and the transport
maximum is located well seaward of a bar crest, the crest will flatten
(Nielsen, 2009; Walstra et al., 2012), and the morphology becomes
dissipative exhibiting a lower and more subdued bar form (panel
D*). The morphodynamic feedback now becomes negative; the un-
dertow weakens, sediment transport rates and spatial transport gra-
dients decrease because of smaller bathymetric relief and offshore
bar movement slows down. However, this idealized sequence may

Fig. 21. Beach state model (modified from Wright and Short, 1984; Short, 1999) showing patterns of sediment stirring and net sediment transport. The beach states are: reflective
(R and R*), low-tide terrace (LTT and LTT*), transverse-bar and rip (TBR), rhythmic-bar and beach (RBB), longshore-bar and trough (LBT and LBT*), and dissipative (D and D*). The
intensity of shading shown along the beach profiles indicates relative amounts of sediment stirred into suspension. The color intensity of arrows indicates relative amounts of net
suspended sediment transport. The relative color intensities are consistent vertically through the diagram. In general the wave heights, intensity of sediment stirring and magnitude
of net sediment transport will be greater for the left-hand side of the figure compared with the right-hand side.
48 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50
be disrupted if the relative wave height over the bar becomes so large
that net transport becomes onshore directed (Fig. 16) such that the
bar begins to move back onshore. Large relative wave heights cause
high levels of breaking wave turbulence and consequently large
phase coupling between oscillatory velocity and sediment concentra-
tion (Fig. 17); large onshore transport rates may then occur at wind
wave (and infragravity wave) frequencies over bar crests. At the
same time, the surf zone is wide, cross-shore radiation stress gradi-
ents are small and the undertow (and its associated sediment trans-
port) is relatively small. Onshore bar migration is known to occur
during intense storms at Skallingen (Aagaard et al., 2004) and on-
shore bar migration under persistently dissipative conditions was
also observed at the Oregon coast by Ruggiero et al. (2005).
Note that this proposed erosional development sequence for in-
creasing wave heights does not include a strongly 3D beach state
(RBB or TBR). We have never observed the RBB/TBR states in an ero-
sional sequence; rather, the morphology appears to progress straight
from LTT to LBT, as depicted in the model (Fig. 21, panels LTT*–LBT*).
When wave heights decrease, an accretive morphodynamic se-
quence is initiated (Fig. 21). The transition from dissipative (panel D)
to intermediate-state morphology (panel LBT) is associated with on-
shore transport of sediment and landward migration of the bar and
this usually occurs when radiation stress gradients over the bar dimin-
ish, in this case because of smaller amounts of wave breaking. This
weakens the undertow such that oscillatory transport due to incoming
wind waves/swell begin to dominate the transport of suspended sedi-
ment. The data in Fig. 16 suggest that this threshold is reached when
the relative wave height decreases below Hs/h ≈ 0.35–0.5, depending
on beach state. Additional onshore-directed transport components in-
clude Stokes drift and near-bed streaming (Henderson et al., 2004)
while Austin et al. (2009) suggested that spilling surf bores exhibiting
strong vertical asymmetry were instrumental in driving sediment on-
shore on the planar beach at Sennen, UK because horizontal pressure
gradients caused by the asymmetric wave shape mobilize more sedi-
ment on the onshore wave stroke than on the offshore stroke. For the
barred beaches examined here, an additional mechanism is important:
Plunging waves that often prevail on intermediate beaches cause signif-
icantly larger sediment concentrations on the onshore wave stroke than
on the offshore stroke because breaker turbulence is capable of reaching
the seabed (Fig. 12b) and this may drive significant onshore sediment
transport (Aagaard and Hughes, 2010; Aagaard and Jensen, 2013).
During relatively calm wave conditions, onshore bedload transport as-
sociated with ripple migration can add to onshore transport of sediment
and at times bedload may be of the same order of magnitude as trans-
port in suspension (Masselink et al., 2008).
Onshore sediment transport causes onshore migration of the bar
and intensifying cross-shore sediment transport gradients such that
the bar grows in height and develops an LBT shape. At some stage dur-
ing the process of downstate morphology transition, the bar assumes
a crescentic shape and the RBB and later the TBR states are attained
(Fig. 21). Development of rhythmic alongshore morphology typically
occurs when the bar is located in shallow water but the exact processes
involved in the initiation of the crescentic relief are still unclear; possi-
ble explanations involve self-organization (e.g. Coco and Murray, 2007;
Falques et al., 2008) or onshore advection of suspended sediment by
standing edge waves (Aagaard and Greenwood, 2008). Regardless of
the initial cause for alongshore heterogeneity of horizontal bar relief, a
positive morphodynamic feedback occurs, involving strong landward
directed steady flows over the bar crest carrying sediment onshore
(Fig. 18) and the shoals are driven onshore by such onshore directed
rip feeder currents until they weld to the beach face. At the same
time, rip channels become increasingly accentuated because of increas-
ing rip current speeds and seaward sediment transport as the flow
becomes more and more constricted (Brander, 1999a,b; Greenwood
et al., 2009), panel TBR. However, at some point rip flow ceases as the
shoals weld to the beach and longshore rip feeder channels/troughs
fill in entirely. When rip flow weakens, the rip channels are choked by
wave-driven onshore sediment transport and the Low Tide Terrace
state emerges (panel LTT). In the surf zone of the LTT state, offshore-
directed currents are weak when waves are small and total sediment
transport is onshore directed, driven by oscillatory incident wave mo-
tions (Masselink et al., 2007). The bar welding represents a bulk transfer
of sand from the shoreface to the subaerial beach in the form of berm
building and the beach finally becomes reflective (panel R). Wave
ripples now occur across the entire shoreface and onshore transport
by oscillatory motions is reduced, or reversed. Moreover, once wave re-
flection from the beach face becomes strong, presently available field
evidence indicates that wave skewness becomes small and this will fur-
ther serve to reduce onshore directed net oscillatory transport rates.
Hence, a quasi-stable morphological equilibrium is reached. Some sed-
iment may still, however, be transported from the shoreface to the
beach through advection of sediment mobilized by plunging waves at
the step and moved onshore by uprush (Puleo et al., 2000; Baldock et
al., 2008).
10. Conclusions
In the late 1970s–early 1980s, the morphodynamic beach state
model was proposed by scientists at the Coastal Studies Unit, University
of Sydney. The model has since been refined and applied in several
other parts of the world. However, sediment transport rates and direc-
tions within beach states which form the vital link between hydrody-
namics and morphology were never systematically examined. This
paper has used extensive field measurements of cross-shore suspended
sediment transport on dissipative, intermediate and reflective beaches
to elucidate the processes transporting sediment within individual
beach states and driving beach morphology from one state to the
next. Offshore sediment transport is primarily driven by steady currents
while onshore transport is mainly caused by oscillatory flows at inci-
dent and infragravity wave frequencies and the balance between
mean and oscillatory wave components determine whether a beach is
eroding, or accreting.
The two morphodynamic end-states (i.e. the dissipative and reflec-
tive states), are quasi-equilibrium states with slow morphologic change
(Wright and Short, 1984). As demonstrated here, the reason is that net
transport rates are relatively small and cross-shore transport gradients
are subdued. In the dissipative state, the net transport is typically off-
shore and decreasing in a seaward direction (but may reverse if the
local relative wave height becomes very large) while net transport in
the fully reflective state is negligible. In the intervening intermediate
states, large cross-shore and alongshore transport gradients (the latter
occurring when the morphology is three-dimensional in the RBB and
TBR beach states) ensure high morphological variability and dynamic
beach states. Maximum sediment transport rates are higher in the in-
termediate states than for dissipative and reflective beaches. In Fig. 21,
a simple conceptual model is proposed, summarizing generalized
cross-shore sediment transport trends within the various beach states.
Despite the several field observations reviewed and referred to
in this paper, further work on the relationships between sediment
transport and nearshore morphology change is warranted. For exam-
ple, more work on different beaches is needed to confirm and verify
the second transport reversal for large H/h in Fig. 16 as well as
pinpointing its causes, and the role of infragravity waves vis-à-vis
self-organization in creating 3D bar morphology is still not resolved.
There is a need to provide a seamless link of process and form through
field measurements of hydrodynamics, sediment transport and mor-
phological change over a larger alongshore extent (cf. Oltman-Shay et
al., 1989; Bauer and Greenwood, 1990) and compare the field observa-
tions with model predictions. Further, the role of bedload in nearshore
bar development and migration is still a moot point and finally, swash
zone processes are an integral part of the beach state model, yet have
not been addressed in this paper. The swash zone is the most landward
 T. Aagaard et al. / Earth-Science Reviews 124 (2013) 32–50
part of the system and delivers sand to the sub-aerial beach, which is
then available for aeolian transport into dune systems. Despite the
pioneering work by Masselink and Russell (2006), there is insufficient
information available from the full range of beach types to add swash
zone sediment transport into the conceptual model described here.
Further work is required to integrate swash zone sediment transport
into the beach state model before the subaqueous sediment budget
for a beach system can be fully understood and patched to the subaerial
sediment budget.
Acknowledgments
The field experiments that were used to generate the data and
ideas presented in this paper were funded by several grants from
the Danish Natural Sciences Research Council and the Natural Sci-
ences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We would like
to thank the many colleagues, students and friends who participated
in the field work over the years.
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