Objective: to protect our beaches

A team from the Geoenvironmental Cartography and Remote Sensing (CGAT) group of the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) has developed SAET. This innovative tool helps monitor the impact of coastal storms on beaches and characterize their recovery in the following months based on satellite images. Its use allows coastal managers to obtain beneficial information and helps them make the best decisions on when and how to act to protect beaches.

"In the current context of climate change, coastal storm events are becoming more frequent and of greater magnitude. These episodes give rise to or increase existing erosive processes on the coasts and put the maintenance of beach functions at risk. Given beaches' great economic and environmental value for coastal societies, analyzing, and understanding how storm events affect them is key to coastal and land managers planning possible responses and adaptations. And this is what our SAET tool contributes to", emphasizes Carlos Cabezas, researcher of the CGAT group at the UPV.

Gloria Storm and Ebro Delta

The team of researchers from the UPV has just published a study on this tool, in which they analyzed in detail the effects produced in January 2020 by the Gloria storm on the beaches of the Ebro Delta. This episode caused necessary morphological alterations on the entire Mediterranean coast, modifying the beaches and dune chains and causing damage to human infrastructures. As regards the Ebro Delta, the impact on the ecological level and the agriculture of the delta was also remarkable.

In their study, the UPV researchers characterized the changes in the position of the coastline automatically from Sentinel-2 satellite images (from the European Space Agency, ESA) and Landsat 8 (from the United States Geological Survey, USGS and NASA), using the SAET tool (Shoreline Analysis and Extraction Tool).

"This tool allows us to obtain, from satellite images, an accurate X-ray of the morphology of the analyzed areas. We applied it to a high-impact case study, such as Gloria, to validate it. However, it can be applied to characterize and understand the impact of these high energy phenomena on any other coastal zone", concludes Carlos Cabezas.

The study developed by the Geoenvironmental Cartography and Remote Sensing (CGAT) group has been published in the journal Coastal Engineering. It is also part of the European project ECFAS ("A proof of concept for the implementation of a European Copernicus Coastal Flood Awareness System).

Funded by the EU, the ECFAS project aims to demonstrate the technical and operational feasibility of a European Coastal Flood Warning and Information System.

Reference

C. Cabezas-Rabadán, J.E. Pardo-Pascual, J. Palomar-Vázquez, A. Roch-Talens, J. Guillén. Satellite observations of storm erosion and recovery of the Ebro Delta coastline, NE Spain, Coastal Engineering, Volume 188, 2024, 104451, ISSN 0378-3839, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coastaleng.2023.104451.