Impact of High-Resolution Topographic Mapping on Beach Morphological Analyses Based on Terrestrial LiDAR and Object-Oriented Beach Evolution

This research applied terrestrial LiDAR for laboratory beach evolution experiments to quantify the impact of resolution on topographic mapping and change analyses. The multi-site registration and multi-temporal scanning processes produced high accuracy (−0.002 ± 0.003 m) topographic models in a wave tank environment. Morphological analyses based on surface change and profiles showed that models of all resolutions were capable of capturing major sediment changes in relatively smooth areas. However, higher resolution models were necessary in areas with rough surfaces and sudden elevation changes, while coarser resolution models smoothed the roughness and underestimated feature height (e.g., peaks and troughs). Decreasing resolutions from 1 to 10 cm resulted in a 2% underestimation of erosional volumes with a linear regression of y = −0.0964x + 0.4185 (R2 = 0.9651) and 3.5% overestimation of depositional volumes with a linear regression of y = 0.0664x + 0.3308 (R2 = 0.3645). However, its impact on erosion and deposition volume assessment based on object-oriented beach evolution analysis is less significant, except when fragment objects dominate the sediment changes. For Coastal Morphology Analyst (CMA), the impact of resolution is more observable through 2D object mapping in terms of object size, number, and spatial distribution. Finally, wave modeling experiments proved that resolutions caused significant changes on the behavior of the maximum wave height, the shape of the wave fronts and magnitudes of the currents.