BERM (probably a variant of " brim ")  , a narrow ledge of ground, generally the level banks of a river . In parts of Egypt the whole area reached by the Nile is included in the berm . Thus of the lands near Berber, Mr C . Dupuis writes (in Sir William Garstin's Report on the Upper Nile, 1904), " In most places there is a well-defined alluvial berm of recent formation and varying width, up to perhaps a couple of kilometres." In militaryphraseology the berm is the space of ground between the base of a rampart and the ditch .