Beach profile monitoring at a macro-tidal beach of Malipo through combination of LiDAR and multi-beam sounding

Abstract

Understanding and prediction of complex processes of coastal morphology change of the macro-tidal beach is challenging, which needs continual monitoring of beach morphology together with coastal environments as well. Macro-tidal beach of Malipo with tidal range of 7 meters, west coast of Korea, has been monitored using ground LiDAR and multi-beam sounding. The characteristics of morphological stability and change of the macrotidal beach are being monitored in two different time scales: larger time scale in 1-3 months and smaller time in days. Ground LiDAR is used during low tide while multi-beam sounding is used during high tide to obtain accurate morphology information every three months from December 2008. Detailed coastal environmental parameters such as wind, wave, current that drive sediment transport and hence morphology change have been monitored by deploying various observation instruments. Bottom sediments were regularly sampled from various points of the beach and properties were analyzed. Beach profiles for each normal line of the Malipo beach are calculated from detailed bathymetry with grid size of 1 meter x 1 meter covering all the beach region. In order to examine more accurate and precise morphological change of the Malipo beach, more intensive data collection will be conducted from October 2009 once every month using LiDAR and multi-beam sounding until March 2010. To cover morphology change in smaller time scale more comprehensive survey of the beach will be carried out in December, 2009 using mobile ground LiDAR during low tide to obtain daily mapping of the morphology to cover all the beach of Malipo together with detailed hydrodynamic conditions that will be simulated using wave-current combined numerical models validated and calibrated with field observation data from various instruments deployed over the beach. The characteristics of beach profile and morphology change with wave and tide at macro-tidal beach be described and presented