A Robust Surface Matching Technique for Integrated Monitoring of Coastal Geohazards

Abstract

At the dynamic coastal fringe, numerous processes interact with local morphology. In soft-cliff environments, this can often lead to the occurrence of coastal geohazards. These can pose a major threat to property and cultural heritage, and an effective monitoring strategy is therefore essential. While contemporary monitoring techniques have been applied, these are often unsuitable in isolation. This paper presents an integrated approach, with the development of weighted surface matching software enabling reliable dataset fusion and multi-temporal change detection, even where significant surface differences exist. Evaluation of this approach is presented and discussed.

Keywords:

• Surface matching
• LiDAR
• laser scanning
• coastal erosion

Acknowledgments

This research is jointly funded by English Heritage, the British Geological Survey, and an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Doctoral Training Grant. The authors would like to thank the Natural Environment Research Council's Airborne Research and Survey Facility (NERC ARSF) for acquisition of airborne laser scanning data, and Ordnance Survey for provision of archival aerial photography.