Abstract
The morphology of sandy beaches is highly dynamic. They are influenced by the geology of the coastal area and external hydrodynamic forcing. On long timescales (years to decades), it is more efficient and convenient to monitor beach evolution through remote sensing technics rather than through direct field measurements. Erosion is a major problem along the coastline of Ghana with over 25 erosion hotspots, including James town. Here, tides, ECMWF EraInterim re-analysis wave data and images covering the beach area have been obtained for the 2013-2014 period. This paper presents preliminary results of the first efforts in processing video-derived observations of waves and shoreline change in Ghana. The pilot application shows a strong potential of the video system in providing fair quality wave data for beach management purposes where video wave characteristics are in good agreement with EraInterim global reanalysis (daily RMSE = 0.8 m and 0.7 m for Hb and Tp, respectively). Shorelines extracted from video suggest large monthly variability driven by wave seasonality while shoreline change shows a subsequent erosion/accretion cycle.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1022-1026 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Journal of Coastal Research |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue number | 75 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Mar 2016 |
| Externally published | Yes |
| Event | 14th International Coastal Symposium, ICS 2016 - Sydney Duration: 6 Mar 2016 → 11 Mar 2016 |
Keywords
- Beach profile changes
- Shoreline location
- Wave modeling