Post by cerridwen on Dec 24, 2009 21:48:30 GMT
World’s first coastal erosion monitoring system deployed
by ClickGreen staff. Published Thu 10 Dec 2009 13:57
World's first underwater erosion system to be trialled
A prototype of the world’s first underwater coastal erosion monitoring system is to be deployed off the South Wales coast next week.
The system, which could save millions of pounds and have a positive impact on millions of lives around the world, will be implemented in the water near Tenby’s South Beach.
Coastal erosion is becoming a more common and destructive process and can have significant and costly effects on human populations. With 50 to70% of the global human population living in coastal zones and rising sea levels caused by global warming speeding up beach erosion, researchers need a way to monitor what is happening beneath the surface of the sea.
Data to attempt to understand this phenomenon has largely been obtained by observations and measurements of exposed coastal areas, such as beaches, to quantify the effects of coastal erosion. While these studies have revealed important information, the details of what was happening below the sea’s surface has not been measurable.
In order to tackle this problem, academics from Swansea Metropolitan University’s School of Built and Natural Environment and School of Applied Computing have teamed up with Wireless Fibre Systems Ltd (WFS) and Valeport Ltd to work on the £611,000 Automated Sensing Technologies for Coastal Monitoring (ASTEC) project. The work has been funded by the Technology Strategy Board.
Head of the School of Built and Natural Environment, Professor Mike Phillips explained: “This project aims to use new technological innovations and expertise developed by the partners of the consortium to design an underwater sensor network system that is capable of measuring the effects of coastal erosion.
“This will enable more accurate decisions to be made regarding intervention levels and the type of intervention when such events occur.”
Head of the School of Applied Computing, Dr Ian Wells added: “In the past, acoustic and optical technology has been used to monitor underwater activity but both are restricted because of the turbulent environment, debris and salt water.
“The pioneering aspect of this project is that we are using electromagnetic technology which is almost always used on land but hasn’t, up until now, been possible underwater. This means we can now take measurements that were unable to be collected previously.
“The system works via a series of solid steel sensors which are placed in a grid pattern on the sea bed. Each sensor measures the weight of sand and sediment on top of it, very much like a weighing scale at home. At fifteen-minute intervals, data is wirelessly transmitted to a buoy on the surface of the water where data is then transferred, once a day via GSM mobile phone systems, to a computer for analysis.”
Swansea Met’s School of Built and Natural Environment has established itself as a leading research centre into the effects of coastal and beach erosion and subsequent engineering remediation measures. Similarly, the School of Applied Computing has many years experience in computer network modelling, protocol design and communications systems research and development.
WFS are the world’s foremost developer of underwater wireless communications, sensing and navigation systems and has pioneered research in electromagnetic technologies. Valeport Ltd is the UK’s leading manufacturer of hydrometric and oceanographic instrumentation.
Professor Phillips concluded: “This will have significant implications for coastal management. The system represents a step change in the accuracy, volume and timeliness of data available to the marine engineer.
“With worries over global warming and its consequential expected impacts, this project will provide valuable data to quantify these effects more completely and therefore enable coastal defence organisations to make appropriate responses.
“Because of the vital information that it would provide, such a system has the potential to save many millions of pounds and to have a positive impact on millions of lives around the world.”