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Community beach monitoring: utilising community and digital technology toovercome data gaps in coastal management, Western AustraliaAshley Robb & Michael PayneCoastal Program, Northern Agricultural Catchments Council, 201 Lester Avenue, Geraldton, WA 6531 AustraliaAshley.robb@nacc.com.auAbstractData gaps on long term shoreline change in the Northern Agricultural Region of Western Australia led to the developmentof a volunteer beach photo-monitoring program in 2010. The program is a pilot program that covers 28sites across a small section of the region’s coastline. Over 1300 photos have been collected at specified photo monitoringpoints with set fields of view and uploaded to an online photo repository for use in coastal management. Thesuccess of the program has led to the expansion of the program across the region, as well as the development of asmartphone application to improve data quality and an interactive web interface for improving the availability of thedata online.IntroductionIncreased pressures on coastal land from urban development, recreational use and climate variability means thatgathering information to understand coastal processes is a high priority. This is particularly relevant in the NorthernAgricultural Region (NAR) of Western Australia (see Figure 1a), where many settlements are located on low lyingsandy coastal landforms (see Figure 1b). Many sediment cells that make up this coastline have recently been identifiedas areas where coastal hazard risk may present a moderate to significant constraint to future coastal management(Eliot et al, 2011).Aerial photography of the region’s coastline is captured every five years. This has resulted in a lack of data availabilityon shoreline change, and lack of understanding about shoreline response to seasonal impacts such as swellevents. A gap analysis report undertaken in 2010 confirmed these data gaps by identifying a lack of information onlong-term coastal change (Oceanica Consulting Pty Ltd, 2010). A community study conducted during the sameperiod found considerable concern for the condition of the coastal environment (Beckwith Environmental Planning,2010). Thus, the opportunity existed to combine the need for data collection with a community desire for improvedcoastal management.In late 2010 the Geraldton Volunteer Beach Monitoring Program was launched by the region’s Natural ResourceManagement organization, the Northern Agricultural Catchments Council (NACC), together with the City ofGeraldton Greenough (now City of Greater Geraldton). Geraldton is the region’s largest population centre withapproximately 40,000 residents living in suburbs that spread 30 km along the region’s coastline. A team of dedicatedvolunteers from the local community was established to take digital photos at key beach monitoring sites using digitalcameras and then upload them to Flickr ® —an online photo-sharing repository. Uploaded photos were labeledaccording to date, time, and monitoring site, and also geotagged to permit the future development of an interactive,virtual aerial map. At each site, volunteers were asked to include specific field-of-view reference points to ensure thesame image profile is captured at each site.The Geraldton program received support from the City of Greater Geraldton (local government), the Departmentof Planning (WA State Government) and coastal engineers from the Department of Transport (WA State Government),who provided technical advice to ensure the program’s scientific rigor. This program would also be useful fortesting the viability of expanding the program to other coastal settlements across the region.15