Citizen science monitoring of beach and dune erosion during Hurricane Fiona

ABSTRACT

Hurricane Fiona made landfall as an extra-tropical storm along the north shore of Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada, in October 2022. The state of the beach and dune immediately before and after the storm was captured through the Coastie citizen science beach and dune photo monitoring initiative, as part of the global CoastSnap Community Beach Monitoring program. Coastie monitoring sites within Prince Edward Island National Park (PEINP) revealed extensive dune scarping, capturing a 12–17 m retreat of the foredune at Brackley and Cavendish Beaches. Using foredune scarp and post-storm shoreline positions, volumetric losses between 28 and 76 m³ m⁻¹ are estimated from profiles located within the first 150 m of the stations. The average horizontal position of the projected foredune scarp position was within 2.8 m of the position identified from high accuracy unoccupied aerial system (UAS) surveys, corresponding to a mean absolute difference of 15.3 m³ m⁻¹ or 45.3% for dune volume changes estimated from the images. Continued monitoring will yield further improvements to the volume loss estimation methodology, and insight on the timing and mechanisms of beach and dune recovery.

KEYWORDS:

• Citizen science
• CoastSnap
• Hurricane Fiona
• beach-dune erosion

Acknowledgments

The University of Windsor Coastal Research Group would like to acknowledge the continuing assistance and in-kind partnership with Parks Canada, including access to aerial LiDAR topo-bathy data and logistical support provided by Climate Change Specialists Garrett Mombourquette and Louis Charron at PEINP. The group would also like to recognize and thank Mitchell Harley at the University of New South Wales, who developed the original international CoastSnap platform and designed the georectification monitoring program. Funding was provided to CH through an NSERC Discovery Grant.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data that supports the findings of the study are available from the corresponding author, EG, upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.