Submersion is the sustainable cyclic portion of

coastal erosion Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landwar ...

where coastal sediments move from the visible portion of a

beach A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc s ...

to the submerged near

shore A shore or a shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In physical oceanography, a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past a ...

region, and later return to the original visible portion of the beach. The recovery portion of the sustainable cycle of sediment behaviour is named

accretion Accretion may refer to: Science * Accretion (astrophysics), the formation of planets and other bodies by collection of material through gravity * Accretion (meteorology), the process by which water vapor in clouds forms water droplets around nucl ...

Submersion vs erosion

The sediment that is submerged during rough weather forms landforms including storm

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar ( ...

s. In calmer weather waves return sediment to the visible part of the beach. Due to

longshore drift Longshore drift from longshore current is a geological process that consists of the transportation of sediments (clay, silt, pebbles, sand, shingle) along a coast parallel to the shoreline, which is dependent on the angle incoming wave direction ...

some

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand ...

can end up further along the beach from where it started. Often coastal areas have developed sustainable coastal positions where the sediment moving off beaches is sustainable submersion. On many inhabited

coastline The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in ...

anthropogenic Anthropogenic ("human" + "generating") is an adjective that may refer to: * Anthropogeny, the study of the origins of humanity Counterintuitively, anthropogenic may also refer to things that have been generated by humans, as follows: * Human i ...

interference in coastal processes has meant that

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is d ...

is often more permanent than submersion.

Community perception

The term ''erosion'' often is associated with undesirable impacts on the environment, whereas submersion is a sustainable part of healthy foreshores. Communities making decisions about coastal management need to develop understanding of the components of beach recession and be able to separate the component that is temporary sustainable submersion from the more serious irreversible

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

erosion portion. Coastal geography Geological processes Physical oceanography {{ocean-stub