The Application of Video Imaging at the Gold Coast, to Quantify Beach Response to Sand Nourishment, and Construction of an Artificial Reef

A video-based coastal imaging system is being used at the northern Gold Coast to monitor and quantify the regional-scale coastal response to sand nourishment and construction of the world-first Gold Coast artificial reef. This automated monitoring system is used to obtain hourly images from four cameras of a 4.5 km length of the coast. Sophisticated digital image processing techniques are then applied to extract a range of information from the growing image database. Analysis includes the quantification of changing shoreline position (and hence beach width), the measurement of three-dimensional inter-tidal morphology, and the comparison of wave breaking frequency at the reef and adjacent nearshore bars.