Spatial and seasonal pebble beach profile characteristics

Beach profiles along eight sections of two fringing pebble beaches located in the Glamorgan Heritage Coast, Wales were regularly surveyed for over one year. The data were used to examine spatial and seasonal beach profile variations by utilizing them in several graphical procedures. Results showed seasonal variations in terms of beach profile configuration, beach face slope and the rate of profile change, although these variations were not necessarily concurrent. This highlights the special case of fringing pebble beaches on which accretional profiles are probably compensated for by erosional profiles alongshore at any one time. This makes it difficult to generalize spatially the profile response of an entire beach system. For this reason, the rate of profile change may more realistically reflect periodic variations in wave regime, which in European latitudes can be approximated with the summer and winter seasons.