PyShoreVolume 1.0.0: A Python based Shoreline Change and beach Volumetric Change Analysis tool

Abstract

Shoreline Change Analysis (SCA) and Volumetric Change Analysis (VCA) are of growing importance to coastal managers throughout the world. The volume, resolution and accuracy of shoreline configurations are gradually improving, which demands tools for efficient processing and analysis. The limited number of systems that combine the two analysis types have lengthy workflows or require commercial software licences, with no current tool that automates VCA from a time series of Digital Elevation Models (DEM’s). We present a new, dedicated and open-source package for automating SCA and VCA in the Python environment. It is designed with a user-friendly interface and workflow, delivers efficient processing speeds, automatically generates map based graphical outputs and computes a full range of positional statistics. We verify the package delivers equivalent outputs to existing tools (AMBUR, DSAS) and demonstrate strong performance by reconstructing erosion and accretion over the last twenty years along the beaches of the Taw and Torridge Estuary, North Devon, UK, a region known to have a complex sediment and morphometric dynamics.