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It is hoped that the community will get behind an Auckland Council initiative that encourages people to take photos of Stanmore Bay Beach from the same location.
A CoastSnap station, the second in Auckland, was installed on Stanmore Bay reserve last November, between the rock seawall and the public toilets, for this purpose.
The public can download the CoastSnap app and take a photo of the beach with a phone, placed in the cradle provided at the station.
Over time, it is hoped that the images people take, all from the same place and position, will track changes in the coastline due to processes such as storms, rising sea levels and human activity.
It is a ‘citizen science’ project and on March 20, coastal experts from Resilient Land & Coasts and Research Evaluation and Monitoring teams at Auckland Council ran a drop-in event at the station to inform people and encourage them to take part. This also provided the opportunity to ask questions relating to coastal processes, coastal hazards and climate change impacts.
Around 20 people took part, including having a go at using the station.
Council’s senior coastal specialist, Matthew McNeil says questions were raised about why the location was chosen – which is because of high foot traffic and the view of the foreshore where dune restoration has taken place and ongoing coastal management is anticipated.
Council staff were also asked how the dune planting project at Stanmore Bay Park has been affected by the recent storms.
McNeil says the planted dune area erodes during significant storms, providing a buffer to the reserve, after which it recovers over time.
He said the small dune at the eastern end of the beach recovered well, with no significant erosion resulting from the recent summer storm events, “demonstrating the value of a more resilient and sustainable nature-based solution”.
Images collected at the station over time will enable changes in the beach profile to be captured, and time lapse imagery to be produced to guide scientific understanding.
The plan is for more stations to go up across Auckland in the near future.
This initiative is part of the global citizen science initiative project CoastSnap (https://www.coastsnap.com/)
