Data and information obtained from low-cost uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly referred to as ‘drones’, can be used to support integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) and sustainable development at the coast. Several recent studies in various disciplines, including ecology, engineering, and several branches of physical and human geography, describe the applications of UAV technology with practical coastal management potential, yet the extent to which such data can contribute to these activities remains underexplored. The main objective of this paper is to collate this knowledge to highlight the areas in which UAV technology can contribute to ICZM and can influence the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the coast. We focus on applications with practical potential for coastal management activities and assess their accessibility in terms of cost, ease of use, and maturity. We identified ten (out of the 17) SDGs to which UAVs can contribute data and information. Examples of applications include surveillance of illegal fishing and aquaculture activities, seaweed resource assessments, cost-estimation of post-storm damages, and documentation of natural and cultural heritage sites under threat from, for example, erosion and sea-level rise. An awareness of how UAVs can contribute to ICZM, as well as the limitations of the technology, can help coastal practitioners to evaluate their options for future management activities.
Monitoring changes in the morphology of coastal environments is important for understanding how they function as systems and how they can be most effectively managed to offer maximum protection of the coastal hinterland. The quick, precise, and efficient method of topographic data capture associated with a remote sensing (RS) technology called terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), also known as ground-based Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), facilitates improved monitoring of morphological changes to coastal environments over traditional survey methods. Terrestrial laser scanning systems are capable of providing extremely detailed 3-dimensional topographic information in the form of a “point cloud” – a densely packed collection of x,y,z coordinates that collectively represent the external surface (often the ground) of a surveyed area. Such detailed elevation information is useful for coastal research, resource management and planning, hazard and risk assessment, and evaluating the impacts of climate change and sea-level rise on the coast. This paper introduces TLS and its applications in a coastal setting and addresses some of the challenges associated with its use as a monitoring tool in vegetated coastal dune environments. Such challenges include optimising time spent in the field, working with large datasets, classifying simple and complex scenes, and analysing multi-temporal datasets.
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