African Coastal Camera Network: Monitoring Ocean, Climate, and Human Impacts

Abstract

Regular and long-term monitoring of coastal areas is a prerequisite to avoiding or mitigating the impacts of climate and human driven hazards. In Africa, where populations and infrastructures are particularly exposed to risk, there is an urgent need to establish such a monitoring as observations are generally scarce. Measurement campaigns and very high-resolution satellite imagery are costly, while freely satellite observations have temporal and spatial resolutions that are not suited to capture the event scale. To address the gap, a network of low-cost multi-variable shore-based video camera stations is been installed along the African coasts. Here, we present this network and its principle of sharing data, methods, and results obtained, building toward the implementation of common integrated coastal management policy between countries. Further we list new contributions in the understanding of still poorly documented African beaches evolution, waves, and sea level impacts. This network is a solid platform for the development of inter-disciplinary observations for resource and ecology (such as fisheries, and sargassum landing), erosion and flooding, early warning system during extreme event, and science-based coastal infrastructure management for sustainable future coasts.