Monitoring seasonal and storm-driven beach and dune changes

Project Overview

This project focuses on disaster resiliency and coastal hazards through post-hurricane natural beach and dune recovery and real-time forecasts of coastal water levels, inundation, and waves, and will take place over two years.

This project is managed by the Coastal Ocean Analysis and Simulation Team (COAST) at the Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems. UGA COAST is focused on solving a wide range of complex coastal issues for present and future conditions. Learn more about COAST here.

Our PLan

project phases

Year 1 is focused on establishing a “Living Laboratory” on Jekyll Island, focusing on semi-continuous beach and dune surveys. Hurricanes Ian (category 5, 2022) and Nicole (category 1, 2022) caused substantial beach and dune erosion across Jekyll Island. Initial GPS-RTK surveys on Jekyll Island indicate over 2 feet of vertical erosion on the beach face and severe dune erosion and scarping.

The establishment of a Living Laboratory (dedicated field survey site) allows for long-term monitoring of the natural recovery of the beach and dune system and supports both research and education. The outcome of this project is new knowledge of temporal and spatial recovery and beach evolution, which drastically impacts flood risk for the beach- and dune-front properties.

Year 2 is where the team plans to set up a real-time forecasting system of coastal inundation for coastal Georgia. Coastal Georgia is vulnerable to coastal inundation from high tides, winter storms and tropical cyclones. The forecasting system will aim to provide a daily five-day forecast of water levels, waves, and inland inundation. This system would provide emergency managers and local officials with potential impact areas.

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