Cute Young Brunette Girl Wearing Necklace On The Sandy Shore Posing With A Colorful Scarf

The two basic beach types are dissipative and reflective. Together with the intermediate types, there are six major microtidal beach types. The reflective type occurs when conditions are calm and/or the sediment is coarse. There is no surf zone and waves flow upon the beach. It reflects a major part of the incoming wave. When bigger waves cut back a beach and spread out its sediments to form a surf zone, the reflective beaches create a series of intermediate types. When wave action is strong and/or sediment particle size is fine, the dissipative beach type is created. This type has a flat and maximally eroded beach. The sediments are stored in a broad surf zone that may have multiple sandbanks parallel to the beach. The intermediate types are characterized by high temporal variability, sand storage both on the beach and in the surf zone and sandbanks and troughs.
Beach types can also be based on the degree of exposure. This ranges from very sheltered over sheltered and exposed to very exposed.