Abstract
This focused on the beach nourishment carried out in April 2020 in Mt. Lavinia Beach in Sri Lanka was subsequently questioned by many parties of the community regarding its efficacy. To address this matter, it was analysed spatiotemporal changes of shorelines before, during, and after scenarios of the nourishment to interpret the coastal erosion risk in respect of natural and anthropogenic impacts using remote sensing and GIS techniques while introducing new methods when the existing methods are not adequate. The newly introduced Shoreline Movement Uncertainty (SMU) index was used to compare the reliability of SCE and NSM to describe erosional and accretion patterns and coastal erosion risk assessments were used to compare the erosional risk. Results revealed that the beach has been subjected to short-term changes due to monsoon influences (P < 0.05) with an average SCE of 41.83 ± 10.64 m for 15 years while the beach nourishment increased the overall beach width about 8.72 m after one year of the project. The 278 m-beach stretch adjacent to the Mt. Lavinia hotel showed a trend of slight erosion continued at the rate of 0.27 ± 0.32 m/year (WLR) before the nourishment, recognized as the most vulnerable part of the beach for coastal erosion. Although the beach nourishment increased the beach width (29.63 ± 13.13 m) in this particular beach stretch, still it is showing an erosion trend at the rate of 20.12 ± 13.8 m/year (WLR) alarming a disaster risk.
Published Version
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