Global sea-level rise continues to increase the frequency and severity of high water level and flooding events, steadily impacting larger coastal populations.
Traditional coastal engineering practice uses hard infrastructure such as sea walls and revetments to armor vulnerable landward regions against extreme flooding, especially along highly energetic coastlines.
A new hybrid nature-based dune structure was constructed at Cardiff State Beach in Encinitas, California, to protect a critical transportation artery from undermining and frequent flooding.
A collaboration between regulators, funders, state agencies, professional practice and academia developed a high resolution robust unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based monitoring strategy to observe dune construction and evolution.
Winters MA, Leslie B, Sloane EB, Gallien TW. Observations and Preliminary Vulnerability Assessment of a Hybrid Dune-Based Living Shoreline. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering. 2020; 8(11):920. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse8110920