Montioring Techniques

A wide range of coastal process data is needed for shoreline management. Ideally, regular surveys of the various variables should be conducted at consistent (dense) spatial and (frequent) temporal scales.

This idealistic approach cannot be sustained or justified financially however, and a reasoned method of sampling must be designed to provide best value for money.

Without recent advances in surveying techniques it would have been impractical to carry out large surveys, the man-hours involved would span several weeks making it too costly to justify. However with the advent of electronic distance measuring devises and more recently with the development of global positioning satellite systems (GPS) it has become possible to rapidly survey large areas with remarkable accuracy.