Beach Processes Research Articles

Signatures of Pleistocene Marine Transgression Preserved in Lithified Coastal Dune Morphology of The Bahamas

The morphology of some lithified wind-blown, carbonate dunes in The Bahamas preserves the signature of erosion from paleo-marine processes: wave-induced swash, scarping, and longshore transport. Digital elevation models were used to distinguish between two dune morphotypes—those disconnected versus connected to beach processes. Dune sinuosity and upwind slope were quantified and used to interpret which dunes remained beach-attached and subject to marine erosion and processes versus dunes that became disconnected from the shoreline via inland migration or shoreline regression. Disconnected dunes possess low slopes over stoss surfaces with sinuous planforms mimicking their crestlines. Beach-connected foredunes preserve steep, kilometers-long linear upwind faces, which are interpreted to be signatures of beach-dune morphodynamics. Foredune morphology serves as a proxy for shoreline position during past sea-level high-stands, while the basal elevations of their stoss dune toes provide an upper limit on the beach and adjacent sea level. A growing library of digital topography will allow for this tool to be used to interpret global paleo-shoreline positions through time and space.

What can long-termin situmonitoring data tell us about our coastlines?

AbstractLong-termin situmonitoring of beach morphology is indispensable for capturing the processes of foreshore morphological changes, and thus many beach monitoring campaigns have been conducted globally. Here, we review the various foreshore beach processes attributable to cross-shore sediment transport, which have been elucidated through long-term beach monitoring. Historicalin situbeach monitoring has revealed many daily–annual-scale cyclic foreshore beach morphological changes and shoreline changes; however, many shorter- and longer-term processes remain unresolved, for example, the short-term response to tidal fluctuations and the long-term response to sea level rise. The cost per area surveyed of state-of-the-art equipment will gradually decrease over time, and the accuracy, resolution, and volume of information obtained from the monitoring methods, which are still in the early stages of development, will improve as research progresses. Continued long-term monitoring and acquisition of previously unmeasured monitoring data through the development of monitoring methods are expected to help elucidate unresolved beach processes.

Novel sediment sampling method provides new insights into vertical grain size variability due to marine and aeolian beach processes

AbstractIn sandy beach systems, the aeolian sediment transport can be governed by the vertical structure of the sediment layers at the bed surface. Here, data collected with a newly developed sand scraper is presented to determine high‐resolution vertical grain size variability and how it is affected by marine and aeolian processes. Sediment samples at up to 2 mm vertical resolution down to 50 mm depth were collected at three beaches: Waldport (Oregon, USA), Noordwijk (the Netherlands) and Duck (North Carolina, USA). The results revealed that the grain size in individual layers can differ considerably from the median grain size of the total sample. The most distinct temporal variability occurred due to marine processes that resulted in significant morphological changes in the intertidal zone. The marine processes during high water resulted both in fining and coarsening of the surface sediment. Especially near the upper limit of wave runup, the formation of a veneer of coarse sediment was observed. Although the expected coarsening of the near‐surface grain size during aeolian transport events was observed at times, the opposite trend also occurred. The latter could be explained by the formation and propagation of aeolian bedforms within the intertidal zone locally resulting in sediment fining at the bed surface. The presented data lays the basis for future sediment sampling strategies and sediment transport models that investigate the feedbacks between marine and aeolian transport, and the vertical variability of the grain size distribution.

An Overview of Late Quaternary Studies and Status of Mineral Magnetism from the Konkan Coast: Constrains on Degradation of the West Coast of India

We present here an overview of textural, sedimentological, magnetic, and remote sensing studies from different sectors of the west coast along with new mineral magnetic results. The emerging coastal erosion and growing incidences of extreme events with an increase in cyclones in the Arabian Sea are affecting these beaches at higher rates of dynamics. The sand characteristics, textures, sorting and clast composition have been studied to correlate them with energy conditions and interpret the transportation dynamics. Heavy mineral analyses delineated provenances and detrital pathways, the morphological and volumetric vicissitudes of beaches helped characterize western coast beaches into stable, eroding or depositing regimes aided by time elapsed satellite images. The multi-parametric studies unravel the relationship of hydrodynamics over a range of geomorphic features. The predominant controls of longshore and rip currents in altering the land-sea interfaces at less than decadal scales were observed. New mineral magnetic results from the Vengurla Beach of the Sindhudurg district are evaluated in above context and to establish semiquantitative relations amongst depositional and erosional patterns that can be further linked to the effects of degree and intensity of local monsoon. The beaches record systematic changes in the concentration of magnetite, haematite, maghaemite, and goethite as a result of a combination of the above beach processes. The studies from Vengurla beach successfully demonstrate mineral magnetism as a suitable quantitative approach to depict the quasi-decadal effects of long shore currents that are further governed by the shoreline changes resultant of increasing competitiveness between coastal erosion and depositional conditions in recent years. The status of studies over the west coast depicted an alarming increase in the rates of erosion at several beaches demanding quantitative monitoring using the integrative approach of mineral magnetism and satellite data. Keywords: West Coast, Magnetic Susceptibility, Curie Temperature, Provenance, Sindhudurg.

Shoreline Detection Accuracy from Video Monitoring Systems

Video monitoring has become an indispensable tool to understand beach processes. However, the measurement accuracy derived from the images has been taken for granted despite its dependence on the calibration process and camera movements. An easy to implement self-fed image stabilization algorithm is proposed to solve the camera movements. Georeferenced images were generated from the stabilized images using only one calibration. To assess the performance of the stabilization algorithm, a second set of georeferenced images was created from unstabilized images following the accepted practice of using several calibrations. Shorelines were extracted from the images and corrected with the measured water level and the computed run-up to the 0 m contour. Image-derived corrected shorelines were validated with one hundred beach profile surveys measured during a period of four years along a 1.1 km beach stretch. The simultaneous high-frequency field data available of images and beach surveys are uncommon and allow assessing seasonal changes and long-term trends accuracy. Errors in shoreline position do not increase in time suggesting that the proposed stabilization algorithm does not propagate errors, despite the ever-evolving vegetation in the images. The image stabilization reduces the error in shoreline position by 40 percent, having a larger impact with increasing distance from the camera. Furthermore, the algorithm improves the accuracy on long-term trends by one degree of magnitude (0.01 m/year vs. 0.25 m/year).

An efficient RANS numerical model for cross-shore beach processes under erosive conditions

In this work, a new numerical model for cross-shore beach profile evolution, IH2VOF-SED, is developed. It consists in the bidirectional coupling of a 2D RANS hydrodynamic solver and a sediment transport module. The resulting model is extensively validated against three benchmark cases at different scales, attending to the hydrodynamics, bottom shear stress and bathymetry evolution. Comparisons between experimental and numerical results show a good agreement for both the flow variables and the seabed evolution in all the validation cases without making use of calibration parameters. Additionally, the qualitative analysis of the results is in accordance with previous experimental observations of sediment transport induced by breaking waves. The computational cost is greatly reduced to about 1/10 of other available RANS models. As a novel aspect regarding RANS models, the model is able to simulate the swash zone and changes in the position of the coastline. A good compromise between precision and computational cost is achieved, allowing for an in-depth analysis of the processes leading to the cross-shore profile evolution.

Granulometric dynamics of the coastal sediments of the Central West coast of India: Insight into morpho-tectonic influences on the beach processes

Beach morphologies, primarily include shape, surface changes/variation, and beach volume along with slope, are very dynamic and believed to be largely controlled by waves and currents (Komar, 1998). Contrary to this general notion, results presented in this paper suggest a strong control of the local morpho-tectonic frame-work on foreshore sedimentation. In the 20 km long study area between Bhatkal on the north and Uppunda in the south, foreshore morphology range from reflective and dissipative to intermediate types, but nearshore hydrodynamic regime is similar. The inland morpho-tectonic frame-work reveals graben and horst-like structures. The foreshores bordering these grabens and horsts are dissipative and reflective respectively, have distinctly different granulometric dynamics and sedimentation processes, whereas an intermediate type between the dissipative and the reflective show a large seasonal variability in terms of beach width and slope. The foreshore profile modification indicated that the reflective beaches remained reflective and the dissipative beaches remained dissipative throughout the year, despite the large variation in the wave energy condition from monsoon through post-monsoon to pre-monsoon. Spit growth is observed only in the dissipative beach. Granulometric dynamics in all the three types of beaches show distinct differences. The reflective beaches show significant fluvial characteristics of sediments in all the seasons, dissipative beaches show minor fluvial characteristics and the intermediate beaches show significant fluvial characteristics only during the monsoon seasons. Sediment transport process in the reflective beaches is dominantly by rolling process, in the dissipative beaches suspension is the dominant mechanism, and in the intermediate type beaches a large range from suspension to rolling is observed. Sediments in the beaches are negatively skewed through symmetrical to positively skewed in reflective beaches, while in dissipative beach negative skewness is dominant. Integration of the tectonic framework, beach morphology and granulometric dynamics suggest that temporal and spatial variations in textural characteristics are related to a strong morpho-tectonic control rather than seasonal variations in wave energy condition.

Pebble morphogenesis of the Cretaceous Conglomerates from the Abeokuta Formation near the Oluwa River, Eastern Dahomey Basin, Southwestern Nigeria

Pebbles taken from the bed of the Cretaceous Abeokuta Formation paraconglomerate near the Oluwa River were used to infer the depositional setting and the nature of the source area, through the integration of bivariate and ternary (sphericity-form and Zingg diagrams) analyses. Deposition in a river environment is indicated by the high sphericity values, ranging from 0.59 to 0.88 (average 0.70). Also, bivariate plots of the maximum projection sphericity (ψp) vs. oblate-prolate index (OPI) and flatness index (FI) vs. maximum projection sphericity (ψp) point to the domination of fluvial processes. Dominantly elongated, compact elongated, compact and compact-bladed pebbles are typical for sedimentary regime with prevalence of fluvial over beach processes. Co-existence of various pebbles shapes (mainly disc, rod-, and sphere-shaped), despite of the similar, predominantly quartz composition, may occur due to the different clast fabrics. This heterogeneity also indicates various transport distances and water energies, pointing to the multiple source areas.

Textural characteristics, mode of transportation and depositional environment of the Cretaceous sandstone in the Bredasdorp Basin, off the south coast of South Africa: Evidence from grain size analysis

Abstract A total of 92 representative sandstone samples of the Bredasdorp Basin in boreholes E-AH1, E-AJ1, E-BA1, E-BB1 and E-D3 have been investigated for their grain size characteristics. Grain size textural parameters and their cross plots, linear discriminate functions (LDFs), C–M (C = first percentile and M = median) diagram and log–probability plots were calculated and interpreted to understand the mode of transportation and hydrodynamic conditions and also to unravel the depositional environments of the sediments. The grain size textural parameters revealed that the Bredasdorp sandstones are unimodal, predominantly fine-grained, moderately well-sorted, mesokurtic and near symmetrical. The bivariate plots of grain size textural parameters indicate that the depositional environments had been influenced mainly by river/beach/coastal dune conditions. The LDF plots show that the sediments are turbidity current deposits in a shallow marine environment. The C–M diagram revealed that the studied sandstones were mainly deposited by traction currents and beach process. In addition, the grain size log–probability curves and C–M diagram show the predominance of suspension and saltation modes of sediment transportation. Based on the inter-relationship of the various statistical parameters, it is deduced that the Bredasdorp Basin are mainly shallow marine deposits with signature of beach and coastal river processes.

Characterization of Intertidal Bar Morphodynamics Using a Bi-Annual LiDAR Dataset

Intertidal bars are common features on meso-and macro-tidal sandy beaches with low to moderate wave energy environments. Understanding their morphodynamics is, hence, crucial for enhancing our knowledge on beach processes which is beneficial for coastal management. However, most studies have been limited by assessing bar systems two-dimensionally and typically over the short-term. Morphology and dynamics of an intertidal bar system in a macro-tidal environment have been investigated using bi-annual LiDAR topographic surveys over a period of seven years and along 3.2 km at Groenendijk beach (Belgium). The detected bars demonstrate that a morphology of an intertidal bar is permanently on the beach. However, these individual features are dynamic and highly mobile over the course of half a year. The mean height and width of the bars were 1.1 and 82 m, respectively. The highest, steepest, and asymmetric features were found on the upper beach, while they were least developed in the lower intertidal zone. The bars were evenly distributed over the entire intertidal beach, but the largest concentration observed around the mean sea level indicated the occurrence at preferential locations. The most significant net change across the beach occurs between the mean sea level and mean-high-water neap which corroborates with the profile mobility pattern. The seasonal variability of the bar morphology is moderately related to the seasonally driven changes in storm and wave regime forcings. However, a distinct relationship may be inhibited by the complex combination of forcing-, relaxation time- and feedback-dominated response. This work conducted from bi-annual LiDAR surveys has provided an unprecedented insight into the complex spatial organization of intertidal bars as well as their variability in time from seasonal to annual scale.

Characterization of sedimentary environment, provenance and distribution of heavy minerals along the Tamil Nadu shoreline, East coast of India

Placer mineral deposits and their limited occurrence have gathered worldwide attention for researchers and geologists to exploit new areas of deposition. This research aims to know the transportation and depositional environment of sediments, provenance and distribution of heavy minerals between Besant Nagar and Sathurangapattinam in the coastal region of Tamil Nadu (India). The sediment samples are collected for textural analysis, magnetic susceptibility (MS), petrographical and mineralogical (XRD) studies of sediment samples, including the heavy minerals studies. Grain size analysis showed fine to medium-grained sandy sediment with very well to moderately sorting indicate reworking of beach edges accompanied by unimodal to the trimodal distribution of sediment from the riverine and marine environment. Grains are mostly symmetrically skewed with platykurtic to leptokurtic nature, indicating low- to high-energy environment prevailing in the region where the deposition and erosion are equally balanced in the area. Bivariate and one percentile–median (CM) pattern plots indicated that most of the sediment is deposited by beach processes transporting sediment by bottom suspension and rolling. The amounts of magnetic or iron-bearing minerals are high in locations no. 1 (Besant Nagar beach), 5 (Injambakkam beach) and 12 (Tiger cave beach) interpreted using MS studies, whereas the heavy mineral weight percentage is higher in locations no. 11 (Pattipulam beach) and 12 (Tiger cave beach). The correlation plot of Heavy wt% vs MS showed positive correlation and in general plots deciphered that the locations with high wt% (Besant Nagar, Injambakkam and Tiger cave beach) showed higher MS indicating the presence of magnetic minerals and the correlation plot between individual mineral grain count% vs MS explicated that the locations were rich in magnetic minerals like ilmenite, magnetite (opaques) and epidote (medium magnetic). The petrographical study of heavy mineral and XRD analysis revealed that the study area contained a high percentage of opaques, garnet, zircon, rutile, chlorite, sillimanite, hypersthene, hornblende, tourmaline, possibly derived from charnockites, granulite gneiss, migmatites and basic dykes. The overall investigation concludes that the sediments are distributed at various locations by marine processes depositing sediment rich in magnetic and heavy minerals derived from various rock type sources transported by rivers and later driven by longshore currents of oceans flowing from S to N, N to S during different months and SW–NE monsoon play a vital role in the distribution of beach placers.

Laboratory investigation of coastal beach erosion processes under storm waves of slowly varying height

Storm-induced large coastal waves are a predominant driver for coastal erosion problems, but the physical processes of storm erosion have not been fully understood due to some technical difficulty in simulating storm waves with timely varying heights in the laboratory and collecting storm beach profiles in the field. In this study, novel series of experiments are proposed to study sandy beach processes under coastal storm conditions in a laboratory wave flume of 60 m long, 3 m wide and 1.5 m high. Two water depths of h = 0.5 m and h = 0.7 m were used to investigate beach response under low and high tidal levels. Two initially uniform plane beach slopes of tanβ=1/15 for dissipation beach and tanβ=1/5 for reflection beach were used to study beach profile changes. Additionally, intermediate beach tanβ=1/10 was also experimentally investigated under regular waves in another wave flume of 30 m long, 0.6 m wide and 1 m high. Non-intrusive instrumentation of high-resolution cameras was used to record time-series photo images on beach profile evolution in spatial resolution of 0.2 cm and a temporal resolution of 0.1 s. Image analyzing techniques were also developed to transform the recorded photo images to digital data on both beach and water-surface profiles. In analyzing the collected data, it is found that the variation of storm wave height results in changes of wave breaking point and also sediment transport direction before and after the wave breaking point. Sediment transport direction was found to move onshore initially under small storm waves, and then a sand-bar was generated and a certain portion of sediment also moved offshore under large waves, but such monotonic relationship between sediment transport and wave forcing could transform as morphology feedback and phase lags between wave orbital fluid velocity and sediment concentration. The wave energy flux at the breaking point is shown to be suitable parameter in predicting beach mass change or storm erosion rate, while the dimensionless sediment settling velocity parameter Ω′ may not be a suitable criterion for predicting beach erosion or accretion under storm waves.

Numerical modeling of the beach process of marine plastics: 2. A diagnostic approach with onshore-offshore advection-diffusion equations for buoyant plastics

A model is proposed for the beach process of buoyant marine plastics, specifically its beaching and backwashing, by introducing beaching and backwashing diffusion coefficients and the onshore-offshore advection-diffusion equations of plastics for the upper layers in the beach and adjacent coastal sea. The backwashing diffusion coefficient was estimated from the average residence time of the beached plastics and the beach width, and then the beaching diffusion coefficient was estimated from the flux-balance assumption between the beaching and backwashing fluxes. Finite difference calculations in the staggered-grid system demonstrated that the amount of beached plastics responds as predicted by the linear system analysis when the beach had an exponential decay type of unit impulse response regardless of the ratio between the residence time and the period of beaching flux fluctuation from the nearshore. The condition in which the flux balance assumption holds was also discussed.

Estimation of Longshore Sediment Transport Using Video Monitoring Shoreline Data

Video monitoring systems (VMS) have been used for beach status observation but are not effective for examining detailed beach processes as they only measure changes to the shoreline and backshore. Here, we extracted longshore sediment transport (LST) from VMS in order to investigate long- and short-term littoral processes on a pocket beach. LST estimated by applying one-line theory, wave power, and the oblique angle of incident waves were used to understand shoreline changes caused by severe winter storms. The estimated LST showed good agreement with the shoreline changes because the sediments were trapped at one end of the pocket beach and the alongshore direction of transported sediments was corresponded to the direction of LST. The results also showed that the beach that was severely eroded during storms was also rapidly recovered following the evolution of LST, which indicates that the LST may play a role in the recovery process while the erosion was mainly caused by the cross-shore transport due to storm waves. After the beach was nourished, beach changes became more active, even under lower wave energy conditions, owing to the equilibrium process. The analysis presented in this study could be applied to study inhomogeneous beach processes at other sites.

The influence of tidal jet current – Ocean wave interaction on the embayed beach processes

Many embayed beaches are formed by barriers that block embayments to create barrier-enclosed estuaries. These embayed beaches are characterized by strong tidal jets that drain the estuaries through a tidal inlet, often debouching at one end. A field study was conducted on Buffalo Beach in Mercury Bay (Waikato, New Zealand) to study wave energy changes caused by the ebb tidal jet. Acoustic Doppler Current Meter observations showed that during peak ebb jet flow, a decrease in wave height occurred along the beach sites that were in close proximity to the ebb jet. A DELFT3D hydrodynamic and wave model was used to further show that wave height variance was due to the jet current causing shoaling and refraction between the central beach and inlet adjacent southern beach. The resulting wave energy focused along the southern beach, diverged along the central beach and increased the alongshore radiation stress gradient. Under modeled storm conditions within the bay, when wave heights exceed 1.5 m, the jet was found to increase spreading and overall jet width. The jet orientation was also deflected shoreward towards the inlet adjacent headland. The radiation stresses driving alongshore transport became increasingly dominant with increased wave height, suggesting that alongshore sediment mobility increases substantially during a storm event due to the presence of the jet. Implications are that jet strength and orientation play a role in embayed beach rotation.

Numerical modeling of the beach process of marine plastics: A probabilistic and diagnostic approach with a particle tracking method

A model of the beach process of marine plastics was proposed based on the assumption of the beaching and backwashing flux balance, and its applicability was examined by means of time-invariant linear system analysis and particle tracking experiments with respect to the ratio between the residence time of plastics on a beach (τr) and the period of nearshore current variability (T0). Based on the theory, the balance was expected to hold when τr/T0 was much smaller than 1; however, good agreement was obtained between the theory and the particle tracking method for much larger values of τr/T0. The parameters, which are diagnostically given in the model, will be prognostically decided by the coastal dynamics in the future to develop robust beach process models. Nevertheless, we believe that a diagnostic approach would be another pillar in the strategy for estimating the amounts and distributions of marine plastics in the coming years.

Pebble Morphometric Studies of Part of Bida Formation, Northern Bida Basin, North Central Nigeria

The Bida formation exposed in Doko locality, Bida town appeared Massive, poorly sorted with localized sedimentary structures.The formation shows three lithofacies: mf, ssf and sf respectively. The formation grades into more matured upward, the pebblesare found within the sf unit as lenses and as scattered pebbles. Vernier caliper was used to measure the Longest, intermediate and shortest axes that are mutually perpendicular for each pebble. These values were used to compute different morphometricparameters as a single variable including MPSI, OPI, FR, ER, R and CF. These parameters were also used as dependent variables in bivariate plots to characterize the depositional process. The average values of MPSI, OPI, FR, ER, and CF are: 0.64, 3.01,0.41, 0.63, 44.5 and 40.73 respectively. The ternary plot of the ratios of the three-axis showed that most samples fall within Bladed(B) field while some other few on Elongate(E) Field, the plot of MPSI versus OPI, FI versus MPSI and R versus ER. Both independent and dependent parameters showed that the Bida formation was deposited by both river and beach processes. Its therefore deduced that the fluvial deposits were later modified by marine activities, possibly during the transgression period.

Использование лазерного сканирования для оценки динамики абразионно-оползневых процессов в прибрежной зоне Севастополя

The article presents the results of a long-term study of hazardous environmental processes on the Sevastopol coast. Laser scanning allows estimating with high accuracy the natural and anthropogenic dynamics of Sevastopol coast that differ in the concentration of various exogenous processes in relatively small areas and pose a threat to the economic activities of the population. Using laser scanning (lidar shooting), key coastal sections were surveyed in the area of Nemetskaya gully and Uchkuevka beach, where landslide and abrasion processes are displaying. Ground laser survey was performed using a three-dimensional laser scanning system. It was carried out in July 2016, July 2017, July and October 2018. The study showed that the average rate of cliff destruction in the area of the Uchkuevka beach was 0.8 m/year. The maximum cliff destruction rate reached 4.6 m, which was observed in the local ten-meter section of the block slide. Because of terracing, an anthropogenic “cutout” about 150 m long, about 300 m wide and 2.5 to 10 m deep was formed in the area of the Nemetskaya gully. The calculation showed that the Vume of removed soil was 393,649.14 m3, and the Vume of dumped soil on the beach was 28,669.62 m3. The results can be used to monitor hazardous exogenous processes, model and predict coastal development, and make decisions for environmental management in the coastal zone.

Elucidating Coastal Foredune Ecomorphodynamics in the U.S. Pacific Northwest via Bayesian Networks

AbstractAs sea level rise and possible changes in storminess threaten coastal communities and infrastructure, the capacity for foredunes to provide protection depends on their geomorphology, which is determined by interactions between physical beach processes and vegetation. Here we use descriptive Bayesian network analyses to examine how sediment supply, beach characteristics, and two species of beachgrass (Ammophila arenaria and Ammophila breviligulata) alter foredune morphology and patterns of sand accretion on U.S. Pacific Northwest foredunes. We show that sediment supply and beach type primarily determine foredune morphology. Beachgrass density also influences foredune shape, but its effects differ among species: increasing density of A. arenaria was associated with steeper sloping dunes, whereas increasing density of A. breviligulata was associated with wider, more shallow sloping dunes. An examination of the change in foredune morphology over a 2‐year period found sand accretion was most strongly influenced by species‐specific patterns of vegetation growth and beach type. Specifically, A. breviligulata exhibited more lateral growth, resulting in greater sand accretion at the seaward margin of the foredune. In contrast, A. arenaria exhibited little lateral growth, resulting in comparatively more sand accretion near the foredune crest. Consequently, growth form‐generated sand accretion patterns resulted in steep, narrow A. arenaria‐dominated foredunes and shallow‐sloping, wider A. breviligulata‐dominated foredunes. These results illustrate that vegetation density and patterns of growth influence foredune morphology and its changes over time.

TEMPORAL VARIABILITY OF LONGITUDINAL SEDIMENT TRANSPORT ON THE BRAZILIAN CONTINENTAL SHELF

The sediment transported along the coast can alter the existing balance in certain environments, causing or accelerating erosive processes, and resulting in economic and environmental damages. In this way, predicting changes in the coastal zone and understanding the beach processes is an essential source of information for the elaboration of coastal management plans. In this context, the present work aims to estimate the alongshore sediment transport (LST) in several sectors of the Brazilian Coast, identifying the annual average and the predominant transport. This study was conducted for the period between the years 1979 and 2015, using computational modeling to investigate the behavior of the waves, and empirical formulas to calculate the LST rates. In addition, the temporal variability was investigated through the wavelet analysis. The results showed a great diversity in the wave climate behavior along the Brazilian Coast, presenting a good correlation in terms of magnitude between the estimation of LST and past studies in the different sectors analyzed. The place where transport has become pronounced understands the sector between Alagoas and Rio Grande do Norte states, while the opposite was observed in the Southern part of Bahia. The wavelet analysis showed that the spectrum of LST time series has a significant amount of energy for processes with a seasonal and annual variability, indicating that the northern regions of Brazil are most affected by the interannual processes. In this sense, informations along the Brazilian coast are presented, that may be considered in future projects, involving the sustainable management of the coastal zones.