Foreshore

The foreshore is the sloping beach zone between the ordinary high-water and low-water marks, swept by the swash and backwash of every tide, so it coincides with the swash zone and the lower part of the intertidal beach. Its gradient is set by grain size and wave energy: coarse, well-drained gravel beaches are steep, fine sand foreshores are flat. The foreshore is where most longshore and cross-shore sand transport happens, and its slope controls the beach profile and wave run-up. It lies seaward of the backshore and berm, landward of the nearshore bars and troughs.