Coastal REsistance: Alerts and Monitoring Technologies (CreamT)

A one-metre sea level rise is almost certain in the next century and it is estimated that 20% of England’s coastal defences could fail under just half this rise. Ambitious climate mitigation and adaptation plans may protect 400,000–500,000 people, but flood and coastal erosion risks cannot be fully eliminated – we cannot build infinitely high sea walls.

Worldwide 150 million people could be affected by sea level rise in the next 30 years. Better ways to measure, forecast, warn of and respond to coastal flooding are thus required. Using Penzance and Dawlish we will demonstrate a new monitoring system able to issue vital real-time hazard alerts and flood data to national government agencies. Working with the Environment Agency (EA), Met. Office, Channel Coastal Observatory (CCO), Cornwall Council, Teignbridge District Council, Capgenimi and National Trust, we will build on previous research using digital communication, data networking and citizen science.

Our recent project (WireWall) created a unique overtopping sensor that we will develop into a low-cost hazard monitoring system for long-term deployments using telemetry to transfer data. Another project (SWEEP) created a south west regional computer simulation that updates daily to forecast coastal hazard three days in advance. The CCO hosts both projects online alongside the Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes (RCMP) across England. This project will incorporate our new hazard data into the SWEEP service through a new web-accessible, open source data staging web service, thus linking models and new monitoring to validate current hazard services.

The new web service will expose existing, coastal, river and weather data, while the new system will include:

a novel wave overtopping sensor to measure water levels and waves just before they impact a sea wall in addition to the depth, volume and speed of the water as it overtops onto public access areas behind the sea defence;
cameras to validate wave conditions and confirm the occurrence of overtopping events;
laser measurements of the pre- and post-storm beach levels during an event; and
an international citizen science programme, CoastSnap, that monitors beach conditions over time through photographs.

The system will use the UK’s tide gauge network to trigger the measurement of potentially hazardous conditions when water levels reach the sea walls and return real-time alerts when flooding is detected. This information will allow validation of the SWEEP computer alert service. With the EA’s flood forecast team we will use this information to refine their local hazard thresholds and to understand the uncertainty in local conditions at the sea wall sites due to their large (many kilometres) distance from national monitoring stations.

The measured, visual and audio data will be used in an interactive coastal walk, and made accessible through an Augmented Reality (AR) phone application, available for IOS and Android devices. The AR walk will guide people to CoastSnap photo posts, encouraging participation in the RCMP beach monitoring. Promotion of the walk through the Tourist Information Centres and Twitter will raise community awareness of changing coastal hazards and shoreline management initiatives such as #floodaware and #CoastSafe.

The team of oceanographers, engineers, data managers, a digital artist, a poet and a software developer will apply their expertise in different disciplines to significantly improve the accuracy and effectiveness of existing coastal hazard warning services. They will engage the public through an easily accessible phone app and participation in citizen science monitoring. Information will be archived at BODC and made available under the NERC Data Policy. This online catalogue is designed to be easily found by the Google dataset search engine and ensures our data are FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interpretable and Re-usable).

Aim

Currently 520,000 properties in England are in areas with at least a 0.5% annual risk of coastal flooding and about 7,500km of road and 520km of railway line have a 0.1% or more risk. When we account for climate change and sea level rise it is clear that the country needs to better prepare for the threat of flooding and coastal erosion. To improve public preparedness we need to raise hazard awareness, and dramatically improve real-time monitoring to optimise existing forecast services and information accessibility. We will use two sea wall study sites (Penzance and Dawlish). Penzance is one of Cornwall’s most famous towns, but wave overtopping causes frequent seafront closure. Dawlish is the sole railway line to the south west of England, often experiencing restrictions or closure due to wave overtopping.

We will demonstrate a new point-of-impact flood hazard nowcasting system to meet national coastal management needs, and will develop a new web service to enable smart monitoring and return of real-time alerts. The system will have the potential to form a low-cost real-time hazard monitoring network able to issue flood alerts to the National Flood Forecasting Service (NFFS) for validation purposes.

The multi-instrument monitoring system will include a new point-of-impact wave, water level, and overtopping (depth, speed and volume) sensor. Inclusion of traditional camera and laser instruments will provide quality assurance. The system will issue real-time flood and near-real-time coastal erosion hazard alerts, while collecting vital data on the interactions between storm conditions (waves and water levels) and the coastal system (beach level). The smart electronics (via the new web service) will: record data when triggered by water level thresholds using the tide gauge network; telemeter processed data; and issue hazard alerts when conditions exceed set thresholds. The web service will also integrate existing but disparate monitoring data into a single accessible source. It will be designed for future interfacing with online services such as satellite navigation systems.

Using self-guided interactive coastal walks the public will be led to CoastSnap posts, an international citizen beach monitoring initiative led locally by our Project Partners. The data gathered will have significant impact for decision-makers, policy-makers and the local coastal communities. The walks will be illustrated by an Augmented Reality (AR) phone application (app), allowing the public to access, interrogate and understand our new and the existing hazard data along with past, current and potential future hazards.

Our objectives are to:

develop a point-of-impact flood monitoring sensor;
automate both the new and traditional measurement technologies;
use the new web service capability to bring together existing but disparate coastal, river and meteorological hazard monitoring with our new data;
improve existing online hazard modelling services; and,
engage the public in citizen-led beach monitoring, while raising the profile of existing flood forecasting services.

We aim to:

develop a versatile, cheap, low-maintenance wave overtopping sensor with on-board data processing and telemetry;
integrate the new sensor with traditional monitoring equipment into the online SWEEP forecast service;
deploy the new sensors across the face of the sea wall (for impacting wave and water levels) and above it (for overtopping depths, volumes and speeds);
develop a new web service to integrate established National Monitoring Networks and expose the data to the SWEEP forecast service;
incorporate the data into an AR coastal walk designed with the local community; and,
market and launch the phone app and CoastSnap initiative with local councils and National rail to engage the public in flood and coastal erosion hazard management.

People

NOC people