Monitoring of beach topography evolution on any tidal area is made possible by Wavecams® technology. It enables to efficiently retrieve not only seasonal erosion or accretion trends, but also high frequency topography evolution (about 2 to 4 weeks) emphasising for example the erosion caused by a storm and the subsequent beach recharge.
For example, both quarterly and monthly beach topography evolutions in the center part of Etretat bay have been computed:
The effect of major storm events in December 2019 and January 2020 is clearly visible.
Beyond this very visual first approach, the characterization of topography evolutions can be quantitatively and precisely done through adapted diagnostics. This will be tackled in our next publication about topography !