Remote sensed and in situ data: An integrated approach for Coastal Risk Assessment

The continuous monitoring of coastal areas is a necessary condition for a timely assessment of shoreline erosion phenomena. The traditional approach consists in ground investigations that are impractical in terms of costs and logistics, on a national or even regional scale. Earth Observation (EO) techniques can represent a cost-effective alternative for a wide-scale Coastal Zone Management. Thanks to the all-weather day/night radar imaging capability and to the nationwide acquisition plan named MapItaly, devised by the Italian Space Agency and active since 2010, COSMO-SkyMed constellation is able to provide X-band images covering the Italian territory with a best effort revisit time of 16 days. However, any remote sensing approach must be accurately calibrated and corrected for the actual meteo-marine conditions. Therefore, in situ data are essential for proper EO data selection, tidal corrections and validation of EO products. An integrated semi-automatic technique for coastal risk assessment and monitoring, named COSMO-Beach, is presented here, with a particular emphasis on the ground truths provided in input to the implemented processing chain, as well as its application on two different test sites in Apulia Region (South Italy).