Work

Using UAVs to Monitor the Evolution of Restored Coastal Dunes

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: In this paper, an innovative method consisting of the construction of an artificial dune reinforced with a composite made by combining sand and seagrass wrack is presented. The performance of this reinforced dune is compared with sand-only dunes, built at the same time, through data collected during 17 field campaigns (covering a period of one year) carried out with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), whose images allow to build digital elevation models (DEMs). The results show that, on the medium term, while the sand-only dunes lose much of their volume (up to 25% of the refilled sediment), the reinforced dune only reduces its volume by around 1.4%. In addition, the transverse and longitudinal profiles extracted from the DEMs of the dunes indicate that sand-only dunes greatly reduce the elevation of their crests, while the profile of the reinforced dune remains almost unchanged. This suggests that the addition of seagrass wrack can greatly contribute to increase the resilience of restored dunes and the time between re-fillings, reducing, therefore, beach protection costs. At the same time, this work illustrates how UAVs can acquire the data needed to map coastal restoration works in a fast and economical way.

Source: Remote Sensing

DOI: 10.3390/rs17193263