Morphological changes recorded from an automated beach optical monitoring system in a highly touristic pocket beach, Coral Bay, Pegeia, Cyprus

This paper demonstrates preliminary results of a Beach Optical Monitoring System (BOMS) installed in Coral Bay Beach (Pegeia, Cyprus) in the framework of BEACHTECH project. The BOMS is deployed at the southern sector of Coral Bay, a pocket sandy beach of high touristic and economic importance for the region that also faces considerable erosion problems. Shoreline and wave run-up positions are recorded from specialized georectified coastal images following automatic procedures and with fine spatio-temporal resolution. Wind speed and direction data were logged from a meteorological station deployed at the same area and used to access the wind climate. For the examined period, it became evident that beach response to the wind climate is irregular, driven by the hydrodynamic action with different shoreline erosion/accretion and recovery patterns. The research demonstrates that such types of coastal monitoring systems are able to provide a powerful, automatic and efficient tool for coastal engineering, management and planning.