CREST

REF: 2022.05392.PTDC

Coastal Resilience Remote Sensing Monitoring

The main vision of CREST is that we can use satellite imagery to obtain vital information on coastal resilience, learning from system evolutionary pathways to identify adaptation mechanisms, recovery scales, system feedbacks and potential tipping points, formulating a resilience monitoring approach that allows to design sustainable measures that strengthen the resilience of the system itself. To this aim, CREST will further explore and combine recent advances in two scientific fields: 1) remote sensing of coastal indicators from satellite imagery and 2) geomorphologic resilience assessment of coastal systems, into an automated process for monitoring the resilience of sandy coasts. This implies translating remotely sensed eco-morphologic data to coastal barrier system states and resilience landscape dimensions (resistance, latitude, precariousness).

https://sites.google.com/view/coastal-resilience-monitoring

Project Main Goals:

There is overwhelming evidence of chronic, ongoing erosion of sandy coasts worldwide, problem that will, most likely, exacerbate in the future due to climate change, posing a risk to the perpetuation of important coastal ecosystem services (e.g. biodiversity, coastal defence, recreation, tourism). Future resilience and adaptation capacity of sandy coasts in light of climate change influence is a growing concern, not only to the United Nations (Goal 13), European agencies (e.g., ESA) and scientists, but also to coastal managers and local communities, calling for urgent measures and strategies. Thus, understanding and monitoring coastal resilience is key to designing appropriate strategies to mitigate future climate impacts. Still, monitoring data are fragmented in time and space, while strategies that prioritise coastal adaptation are far from being a common practice. Sandy coasts are still monitored and managed ignoring critical system feedbacks for sustainability, despite the growing consensus that natural adaptation is complex, with feedbacks across scales (system units), non-linear responses and system tipping-points.

Initial and final date:

SDG's Goals: