Project Summary

Synergy for the sustainable development and safety of the hellenic tourist beaches (BEACHTOUR)

Greece is ranked among the 20 top touristic destinations with most of the  growth associated with beach destinations. At the same time, most of the Greek  (and world’s) beaches are under erosion, posing a serious threat to tourist industry.

Thus, there is an urgent need to

  • (a) acquire information that will  improve our understanding of beach dynamics and provide the basis for effective management plans; and
  • (b) present the framework that will allow prospective tourists/users to make informed choices of beach destinations.  Within this framework, the main objectives of the BEACHTOUR project are to:
  • (i) construct a GIS-based, dynamic and user-friendly platform for storing/visualizing information on the environmental characteristics of the  Greek beaches, as well as information pertinent to beach management (e.g.  presence of coastal infrastructure) using web-based remote sensing  information;
  • (ii) assess the accuracy/sensitivity of high resolution satellite imagery to define beach spatial characteristics and nearshore bathymetry;
  • (iii) develop/test an automated Beach Monitoring System-BMS which can record, process and communicate (in quasi-real time) high frequency information on beach morphodynamic and nearshore hydrodynamic characteristics, meteorological conditions and safety issues;
  • (iv) advance a state-of-the-art morphodynamic model of comparable spatio-temporal resolution;
  • and (v) identify ‘best practices’ in science-driven beach monitoring, management and decision-making, aiming to relate beach vulnerability to economic losses and suggest effective adaptation measures.

The BEACHTOUR project “Cooperation 2011-2015” (11SYN_8_1466) acknowledges the Operational Program “Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship”, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the General Secretariat for Research and Technology (Hellenic Ministry of Education).

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