Our global climate has already changed and warming keeps increasing at unprecedented rates. Future projections forecast that ecosystems and societies across Australia will be significantly affected by impacts such as accelerating sea-level rise and extreme storms.

Understanding complex coastal processes and interactions between land, sea and human communities is of primary concern. We need to learn more and fill the gaps in our understanding of coastal process in this changing climate context.

Our research will directly address the lack of data and improve coastal monitoring to facilitate coastal adaptation to climate change and build resilience against coastal hazards.

3D surveys of the dunes and beach will be repeatedly undertaken (3D + time = 4D monitoring) using overlapping images taken from smartphones by citizen scientists. Smartphones (Android only) will be connected to the ‘Smartphone RTK’ system which consists of a special bracket and a survey-grade GPS antenna. This system allows photos to be precisely located, or ‘geotagged’, to within 2cm.

Short reports will be sent to community partners for their distribution as 3D surveys of different beach sites are produced. For example, after storm events or every couple of months. Reports will include images and beach profile changes such as dune crest retreat, beach volume change and vegetation changes.

At the end of 2023, a public presentation will be organised showcasing the outcomes. Additionally, rawdata (3D and images) will be available upon request.