Monitoring and modeling the shoreline

Abstract

Shoreline monitoring is a vital element of planning and management of the coast in a sustainable way. Shoreline monitoring informs coastal managers of coastal evolution, change and processes as well as the rate of change. Monitoring provides an essential baseline against which the impacts of climate change on the coast can be assessed. Ideally coastal monitoring should take place across coastal process sediment sub-cells, sediment cells, and on a regional and ultimately a national scale; however in practice this is not always the case. It is important to establish exactly what is to be achieved through monitoring and to choose the most appropriate methods. A major factor in this choice may be the financial cost, but other considerations such as the accuracy of data and the level of detail to be obtained are also important. Land ownership issues may impede some techniques. Monitoring is undertaken on a variety of spatial and temporal levels. The development of individual coastal defence schemes could require localized research including both pre- and post-construction monitoring programmes, while regional programmes cover a larger geographical area. Some monitoring may be sporadic or even take place only once, while other methods employed occur regularly and over a long time period. Historically there has been little co-ordination of monitoring undertaken in relation to the shoreline across Europe (Eurosion 2004). Recommendations from Shoreline Management Plans (SMPs) and coastal strategy studies in the UK have consistently identified a requirement for development of coastal monitoring programmes (Bradbury, 2004). However, many other European countries have, in the past, failed to identify a need for coastal monitoring and as such, there is a lack of accurate information on the morphodynamics and hydrodynamics associated with many of these coastlines. A number of case studies have been used in this report to reflect current monitoring practices throughout Europe and also on a global scale. More recently, steps have been taken in countries such as The Netherlands, Sicily, and Dubai, to create a standard and repeatable programme for coastal monitoring, similar to that set up on the south coast of England. In most cases, a combination of airborne, ship-borne and ground-based techniques have been used to develop sophisticated monitoring practices carried out on national scales.