Dr Paul Bell

Research interests

Ground & Satellite Based Remote Sensing of the Sea Surface

Design of novel analysis techniques for the high resolution (10s – 100s of metres) mapping of waves, currents and bathymetry and other oceanographic effects using data from coastal X-Band Radar systems. Also the use of such data in long term monitoring of such sites.

Use of satellite data for intertidal mapping.

Application of low cost GNSS systems for remote sensing of the sea surface.

ResearchGate     ResearcherID: B-5282-2012     ORCID ID: 0000-0002-4673-4822

News:

• April 2025: I have (re)appeared on a new episode of "Crowd Science" on BBC World Service - clips of me talking about the methods and challenges of sea level measurement from last year's episode reused on an update to the programme "How do you measure a mountain?" https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct6ssf 

• April 2025: I was delighted to give a talk at Ocean Business  in Southampton on "The Remote Sensing Revolution" discussing all the amazing things we can do with both ground and space based remote sensing 

• November 2024: New Paper Published in Geomorphology: "Seasonal mobility of transverse finger bars within a mixed sand-gravel bay measured using X-band Radar". This builds on some earlier work published as a EWTEC'15 conference paper teasing out subtle sea surface roughness signatures of subsurface features at the EMEC tidal energy site - but we have seen these at a number of sites now - expect to see more publications on this in the coming years as it is a brilliant way of observing how migrating sea bed features act as a sediment transport pathway. Dominique Townsend's new paper, resulting from her PhD, tracks some transverse bar features migrating at a site on the south coast of the UK

• May 2024: I contributed to a BBC World Service "Crowd Science" episode about measuring sea level - available on the BBC Sounds Portal: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct5rh2 

• February 2024: The CoastSense (Marlan Maritime Ltd) mobile radar system, or 'Rapidar', (which has NOC knowhow at it's heart) gets a mention on the BBC website! https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c72gr5qk64po

• January 2024: Short article on SWOT published in IMarEST’s Marine Professional Magazine in January edition: Article

• January 2024: We have won a UK Space Agency SBRI grant to work with Peel Ports and the Channel Coastal Observatory on applications of our Satellite Temporal Waterline Intertidal Mapping – and will also be using SWOT data to investigate the validity of tidal data in the case study estuaries. (PI: Christine Sams)

• December 2023: We have won one of the UKRI Digital Twin Grants: SPLASH, led by Dr Nieves Valiente at the University of Plymouth: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/news/scientists-combine-ai-and-climate-data-to-create-a-warning-tool-for-coastal-flooding

• June 2023: We were delighted to host the 6th Sensing the Ocean with Marine Radar Workshop (SOMaR-6) here in Liverpool with approx 30 in-person participants!

• 2023: Check out our EO4SD web page at ESA – we have a super-cool animation of the evolving intertidal areas of Morecambe Bay using Sentinel 1 SAR imagery with a version of the Temporal Waterline Method modified for satellite data - https://eo4society.esa.int/projects/sar-twl/

• December 2022 The SWOT Satellite has been successfully launched! See : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rr2L2rVvdc

• November 2022: Article Published in International Water Power and Dam Construction Magazine on the SWOT Satellite: Article Reader

• June 2022: We have won an ESA Grant (Euros150) : Intertidal Mapping in the Temporal Domain - Towards Operationalisation of a Global Monitoring Tool, expected to run from September 2022-end of 2023. (Team: Christine Sams, Paul Bell, Clive Neil)

• February 2022: Presented some of the results from our HMS Magpie radar trials at the Hydrographic Society's Remote Hydrography Conference in Dublin. 

• February 2022: We have successfully completed a 2-week deployment of a low-cost, battery powered GNSS unit (a progression of the Loctips project) overlooking Crosby sea front during the sequence of three named storms during February 2022. A similar system was simultaneously deployed on the Seaforth Radar Tower overlooking the Queen's Channel. Many thanks to Peel Ports and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency for their support of this project! https://twitter.com/NOCmarinePhys/status/1500802515746664449

• November 2021: I have been awarded one of four 'Embedded Digital Researchers Applying Transformative Technologies' fellowships working with mmSensors (Marlan Maritime Ltd) to help transition our wave inversion algorithms to operational use on their radar network. This will allow bathymetry and current vector maps to be calculated at each radar site when and where there is sufficient sea clutter present on the raw radar data. This should keep me busy until May 2022 to say the least! NE/W007347/1 

• May 2021: Our work with the radar at Thorpeness has been published! Well done to all my co-authors for getting this out! "Nearshore Monitoring With X‐Band Radar: Maximizing Utility in Dynamic and Complex Environments" https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JC016841 https://twitter.com/NOCmarinePhys/status/1392052116068392962

• March 2021: We conducted a series of radar based mapping trials during February with the Royal Navy - we collected some fantastic data and are busy looking at the results now. See the RN's article on the trials: HMS Magpie tests groundbreaking software to rapidly map the seabed.

• December 2020: Marlan Maritime Technologies achieve a 'Highly Commended' award at the Environment Agency Flood and Coastal Excellence Awards 2020! Well done Team Marlan! The pre-recorded awards ceremony can be seen at: Flood and Coastal Excellence Awards 2020 and Marlan's project and award appears between 12-17 minutes into the video.

• September 2020: The Hydrographic Society's UK Remote Hydrography Prelude Webcast Event is now available - see the latest updates on our Temporal Waterline Intertidal Mapping work.

• September 2020: SWOT-UK Project funded for the Calibration & Validation phase of the SWOT satellite mission to be launched in 2022 - work starts in early 2021. NE/V009168/1

• August 2020: First paper just published from the Loctips project: "Demonstrating the Potential of Low Cost GPS Units for the Remote Measurement of Tides and Water Levels Using Interferometric Reflectometry"

• January 2019: Marlan’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership with the NOC achieves ‘Outstanding’ grade

• September 2018: Video presentation from Pycon UK 2018: Low Cost GNSS Tide & Sea Level Measurements LoCTIPS

• March 2018: NOC partner Marlan Maritime Technologies wins second innovation award in a year

• July 2017: Award for NOC partner company Marlan Maritime Technologies

• September 2016: New technology for remotely mapping beaches

• June 2016: Technology partnership to provide vital new information to coastal engineers