Shoreline Seasonality of California's Beaches

Most of the world’s beaches have regular cycles of erosion and recovery, but new USGS research is showing that these cycles may be considerably different from common perceptions. 

We know that these cycles are related to ocean waves, and that larger waves cause movement of beach sand offshore, whereas smaller waves move this sand back to the beach. Winter generally brings larger waves, while summer brings smaller ones.

By analyzing large new datasets of beaches from satellite imagery, this research shows that the winter/summer framework does not represent many beaches, including the majority of southern California’s beaches. 

This research shows that there is a great diversity in the seasonal timing of beach erosion and recovery cycles, and that many beaches show regular erosion cycles in the spring or the summer, rather than the winter. This indicates that the ‘winter-narrow/summer-recovery’ conventions for beaches are not expressed universally and that shoreline seasonality is far more diverse.