Coastal zone management

Integrated Coastal Zone Management is recognised to be a vital task for all countries with a vulnerable coastal zone. The availability of up-to-date topographic and thematic geo-information is of significant importance in the responsible management of these areas. For this reason, much attention has been given to find good quality, cost effective methods to quickly acquire the necessary geo-information data products. Consistency and repeatability are other important issues, the goal being to get a better understanding of morphological processes influencing and threatening the coastal zone. Taking into account this mixture of criteria, airborne laser scanning has proved itself to be an appropriate tool for DTM generation. In 1996 the Dutch government decided to switch from aerial photography to laser scanning technology for their annual coastal zone mapping, since laser scanning technology provided higher quality, better area-wide coverage, faster delivery of the products and gave value for money. In Belgium, France, Germany, Denmark and the UK laser scanning has become the accepted method to determine the shape of the coast.

In recent years we have witnessed laser scanning being integrated with digital colour and colour infrared images and even with multi- or hyperspectral sensors. In combination with the accurate elevation data the additional data gives information about the health of the vegetation and is used to further classify the type of sand and its movements.

For a complete model of the coastal zone area, the bathymetric data is often combined with the Lidar elevation data.

TerraImaging has performed airborne lasers canning coastal zone projects in countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, the UK, Malaysia, and Australia. In all cases the customers were convinced by its advantages and monitoring programs were often established.