Cuspate forelands, also known as cuspate barriers or Nesses in Britain, are geographical features found on coastlines and lakeshores that are created primarily by long shore drift. Formed by accretion and progradation of sand and shingle, they extend outwards from the shoreline in a triangular shape. Some Cuspate forelands may be stablilised by vegetation, while others may migrate down the shoreline. Because some cuspate forelands provide an important habitat for many flora and fauna, effective management is required to reduce the impacts from both human activities and physical factors such as climate change and sea level rise.

The debate involving how cuspate forelands form is ongoing. However, the most widely accepted process of formation involves long shore drift. Where longshore drift occurs in opposite directions, two spits merge into a triangular protrusion along a coastline or lakeshore. Their formation is also dependent on dominant and prevailing winds working in opposite directions. Formation can also occur when waves are diffracted around a barrier.

Foreland is the easternmost point of the Isle of Wight. It is located three miles (five kilometres) east of the town of Brading, and due south of the city of Portsmouth on the British mainland. It is characterised by a pub called the Crab and Lobster and various beach huts plus a beach cafe and a coast guard lookout. In the sea are the reefs of Bembridge Ledge which is rich in edible crabs, lobsters and spider crabs and shoals of mackerel. In the Crab & Lobster pub are photographs of the many shipwrecks, which included the submarine HMS Alliance, now a museum ship at Gosport and the First World War troopship the S.S. Mehndi carrying troops from South Africa, with great loss of life.

The channel through the interior of the Bembridge Ledges is known as "Dickie Dawes Gut" after a notorious local smuggler (and father of the courtesan Sophie Dawes) due to his feat of escaping the excise men by superior local navigational knowledge. There was a pill-box built in the Second World War, now subsumed in the sea defences. The beach is sandy with stones which contain Cretaceous fossils. The cliffs also feature Horsetails ferns.