Monitoring the Dynamics of Formby Sand Dunes Using Airborne LiDAR DTMs

Ahmed Mutasim Abdalla Mahmoud,Alessandro Novellino,Ekbal Hussain,Panos Psimoulis,Stuart Marsh

doi:10.3390/rs13224665

Ahmed Mutasim Abdalla Mahmoud, Alessandro Novellino + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13224665

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Abstract

Coastal dunes play an important role in coastal erosion risk management, where they act as a dynamic natural sea defence line. Formby coast is part of the Sefton coast in the Northwest of England and is one of the largest and most rapidly evolving sand dune systems in the UK. Such dune systems require continuous comprehensive monitoring activity to understand their dynamics. In this research, we investigate the use of airborne LiDAR digital terrain model DTMs for monitoring the dynamics of the sand dunes at Formby between 1999 and 2020. We found that the rate of elevation change for the beach and the dune areas ranges from −0.78 to 0.02 m/year and −0.92 to 0.73 m/year, respectively. The beach and the frontal dunes have had significant sand erosion, while the inner dunes gained sand during the measurement period. Vegetated areas remained unchanged due to the impact of vegetation in stabilizing the movement of the dunes. Formby beach had a volume loss of about 907,000 m3 in the last 21 years, while the dunes had a volume increase of about 1,049,000 m3 over the same period. The total volume of the entire dune system, consisting of both the beach and dune areas, remained unchanged, which indicates that the growth of the inland dunes is fed by sand from the beach. All the volumetric changes occurred due to sand redistribution within the system, with erosion along the beach, and deposition and erosion in the dune areas.

Highlights

Coastal dunes play an important role in coastal erosion risk management [3], where they act as a dynamic natural sea defence [3,4,5,6,7,8]
The digital terrain models (DTMs) of difference results show that the elevation changes in the study area varied between a maximum height increase of 18 m and a maximum decrease of 15 m (Figure 3)
We analyzed unique LiDAR DTM time series data collected over the Formby coast

Summary

Introduction

The formation of coastal zones is affected by climate change, with severe storms and sea level rise threatening coastal communities and natural habitats [2]. Coastal dunes play an important role in coastal erosion risk management [3], where they act as a dynamic natural sea defence [3,4,5,6,7,8]. The morphology of coastal dunes depends mainly on four factors: (1) the beach morphology and shoreline dynamics which affect the sand supply; (2) the wind characteristics and speed and direction variability; (3) the vegetation cover along the coastal area, and (4) human activities such as planting trees, installing fences, etc. The morphology of coastal dunes depends mainly on four factors: (1) the beach morphology and shoreline dynamics which affect the sand supply; (2) the wind characteristics and speed and direction variability; (3) the vegetation cover along the coastal area, and (4) human activities such as planting trees, installing fences, etc. [3]

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