| Περιγραφή Προγράμματος: | Greece is ranked amongst the 20 top touristic destinations with most of the growth associated with beach destinations. At the same time, most of the Greek (and world’s) beaches are under erosion, posing a serious threat to tourist industry. Thus, there is an urgent need to (a) acquire information that will improve our understanding of beach dynamics and provide the basis for effective management plans and (b) present the framework that will allow prospective tourists/users to make informed choices of beach destinations. Thus, the main objectives of the proposed project are to (i) construct a GIS-based, dynamic and user-friendly platform for storing/visualizing information on the environmental characteristics of the Greek beaches as well as information pertinent to beach management (e.g. presence of coastal infrastructure/protection schemes and beach facilities and accessibility) using web-based remote sensing information (b) assess the accuracy/sensitivity of high resolution satellite imagery to define beach spatial characteristics and nearshore bathymetry (c) develop/test an automated Beach Monitoring System-BMS which can record, process and communicate (in quasi-real time) high frequency information on shoreline position, wave breakers and run-ups, wind speed/direction, air/sea temperature, UV radiation and beach user numbers, flow, activities and safety (d) advance a state-of-the-art morphodynamic model and test/train it using integrated field information of comparable spatio-temporal resolution obtained through the concurrent deployment of the BMS, a 3-D laser scanner and arrays of high frequency sensors and (e) identify ‘best practices’ in science-driven beach monitoring, management and decision-making, make an assessment of the economic impacts of sea level changes at selected beaches, estimate the costs/benefits of beach monitoring, develop methodologies that can link beach vulnerability to economic losses and suggest effective adaptation measures. |
|---|
Greek