Strong winter storms batter the beaches of the Cantabrian coast (northern Spain), causing the coastline to recede. The coastal retreat of the Gerra beach (Cantabria) is investigated in this chapter through a diachronic study using the following geomatic techniques: orthophotography from 1956; photogrammetric flights from 2001, 2005, 2010, 2014, and 2017; LiDAR survey from August 2012; Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) survey from November 2018; and terrestrial laser scanner. TLS has made 17 observations. In this eight-year period (2012–2020), changes in volume of the beach and the sea cliff are determined throughout the winter (November–April) and summer (May–October) seasons, with a focus on their association with storms. The results of this analysis show that the cliff’s base retreat is minor, but this is not the case for the cliff’s top and existing beaches in the Cantabrian Sea, where the retreat is noticeable. Between 1956 and 2020, the retreat of the cliff top line in Gerra beach reached heights of more than 40 metres. During the same time span, other beaches around the Cantabrian Sea have receded by more than 200 metres. Our observations have bolstered inquiries into the retreat of cliffs on the Atlantic coast, where the cliff lithology diversity and the aggressive action of the sea (storms) have been responsible for active erosion on the cliff face. In addition, this study used geomatic techniques that became commercially available between 1956 and 2020, such as aerial photogrammetry, TLS, LiDAR, and UAV, and analysed the data to see how precise each method might be when applied to similar geomorphological structures. The combination of strategies, as well as their adaptation to the geomorphological peculiarities and orographic position of the beach, serve as a model for the regulation of beach dynamics and cliff retreat.
Author (S) Details
Dr. José Juan de Sanjosé Blasco
Departamento de Expresión gráfica, Escuela Politécnica, Universidad de Extremadura, 10003 Cáceres, Spain.
Enrique Serrano-Cañadas
Departamento de Geografía, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Valladolid, 47011 Valladolid, Spain.
Manuel Sánchez-Fernández
Departamento de Expresión gráfica, Escuela Politécnica, Universidad de Extremadura, 10003 Cáceres, Spain.
Dr. Manuel Gómez-Lende
Departamento de Geografía, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Valladolid, 47011 Valladolid, Spain.
Paula Redweik
Department of Engenharia Geográfica, Geofísica e Energia and Instituto Dom Luiz, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, 1649-004 Lisbon, Portugal.
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