Beach in plan view

The Cell Concept

Along a sandy coast, the ideal cell can be defined as a single area of erosion, a single area of deposition, and the transport path between. Cells are bounded along the coast in various ways: rocky headlands, sandy capes, bay heads, wide inlets, estuary mouths, deltas, submarine canyons, marine marsh or swamp, and others. For two cells to be isolated from each other there must be little or no leakage of sand past their common boundary. In nature some cells are well isolated, and others are poorly isolated, commonly gaining or losing significant amounts of sand from or to adjacent cells; these last are better considered as subcells.

Maturit...