It sounds like, as I thought, the word is not particularized to the context of "shore". Thanks for the LIU, mav.
In flood-control practice (with which we who like in so flat and ill-drained a land as Chicago are familiar ), berms are often used in conjunction with "swales".

Post-edit to dear-dear Dub-Dub : All I'm saying is -- well, let me analogize. You wouldn't put "bird" in a list of shore-words, even though of course some types of birds do make the shore their habitat. So too the six definitions of "berm": most (though not all) are unconnected with the shore.