This book is designed primarily as a textbook for an upper-level undergraduate course in coastal processes and geomorphology and it stems from a fourth-year course that I have taught for twenty-five years at the University of Guelph. Its primary objective is to provide students with a description of processes acting to erode, transport and deposit sediments in the coastal zone, and of the factors that act in concert with these to produce the infinite variety of features that characterise marine and freshwater coasts around the world. The intent is to provide sufficient information for the reader to be able to then tackle more detailed material available in primary sources such as refereed journal articles, monographs and the World Wide Web.

The students in the course I teach are primarily in the BSc programme in Physical Geography or Earth Surface Science, with a focus on geomorphology and hydrology, but students from a number of other disciplines, including Engineering, Marine Biology and the BA programme in Geography also take the course. In writing this book I have assumed some background in geomorphology or earth sciences and some level of comfort with mathematical equations and basic physics. However, it should still be readable for those who do not have these. It is my hope that the book will also provide a useful reference source for coastal managers and for other scientists and social scientists interested in the coastal zone.