You may have already spotted them: at various places along the North Holland coast there are special poles with a smartphone holder. By taking a photo of the current waterline, you contribute to the coastal research ‘CoastSnap’.
It started in 2020 with one CoastSnap pole at Egmond aan Zee, but last May, coastal researchers Timothy Price and Math van Soest from the University of Utrecht, placed another three poles on Texel, near Petten and between Noordwijk and Zandvoort (Northvoort beach reserve). . The photos that people can take there contribute to research into the movement of our coast.
The poles face the sea. The idea is that you scan the QR code, then place your phone in the holder to take a picture. Your phone sends this photo to the researchers. The photo is then automatically processed to determine the location of the current waterline. You will immediately see the result on your phone.
Price: “The photos that people send in form the data for our coastal research. We know that our beach is constantly wearing down. That is why sand is poured into the sea to make up for the shortage of sand and maintain the amount of sand.”
Coastal research
Price explains that the images help to give a good idea of how the waterline changes over time, and how long it takes for sand to wash up again. “Of course there are daily variations (ebb and flow), but winter and summer also form a variation together; in winter there are more storms, making the beach narrower. And then there are annual trends. Winters with less or on the contrary more storms greatly affect the waterline.”
According to Price, the images are now being used to look at the waterlines, but hopes to use the data in more ways in the future: “We can also discover where rip currents are. Those techniques already exist, but are not yet applied to the images now. In a while we can give people information about where they should and should not swim.”
The coastal survey is not intended to advise the government. Price: “The government is doing its own research. We want to know how the coast behaves on different time scales, and we want to involve people in this.” Price believes it is important that many people participate in the conversation about the dynamics of the coast. “To inform people, but perhaps also to nuance the public debate about climate change and storm intensity here and there.” According to Price, there are sometimes alarmist reports about storms and their consequences, while our coast can adapt well to new conditions.
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Price hopes to be able to expand the number of poles on the coast soon. “I myself come from the coastal research field and there we used very expensive camera installations that took a picture once an hour. The poles with smartphone holders are much cheaper, with which we can obtain the same information, only on many more places.”
Price can’t complain about the number of photos submitted so far. “In Petten we get fifteen or twenty images a day. In Texel, Egmond, Noordvoort we get an image about every day.” The way you can send a photo is automated and anonymized, according to Price. “First you had to email the photo yourself, or share it on social media with a hashtag. Now the photo is automatically sent without sending any further data. “We hope that makes it more accessible for people to take more images.”