Geotechnical Soil Characterization From Remote Sensing for the Assessment of Coastline Strength, Stability, and Trafficability

Abstract

The world's coastlines are characterized by a large variety of soil types ranging from rocky cliffs to sandy beaches and muddy flats. Furthermore, most coastal areas are characterized by active morphodynamics, leading to spatial and temporal changes of sediment types and sorting through erosion, transport, deposition, and mixing processes. Changes and variations in water levels may occur on temporal scales of single waves to sea level rise or extreme event-based storm surges. In areas of higher latitudes, freeze and thaw cycles, a well a changes in permafrost due to climate change, may affect the soil. All of these processes impact the soil behavior of coastal sediments, and therefore sediment strength and stability, crucial parameters for the prediction of beach trafficability as well as navigability in nearshore environments, including land-ice interaction in polar regions. Sediment strength and stability can traditionally be determined from field testing on site, andlaboratory testing of collected field samples. However, for many naval missions, access constraints and safety concerns may not allow on-site testing or the collection of physical samples. Recent advances in remote sensing represent an opportunity to determine soil properties such as sediment strength, friction angle , and moisture content without physically accessing the site. However, direct correlations between remotely sensed properties and geotechnical parameters are still rare, and thus, a directly applicable remote sensing and data analysis framework for naval operation issues such as beach trafficability is still lacking. This knowledge gap and lack of verified methodology applies particularly for remote sensing data from satellites or other platforms at large distances to the site.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 28, 2022
Accession Number
AD1224108

Entities

People

  • Nina Stark

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Coastal and Marine Engineering/Sediment Transport/Hydraulic Engineering
  • Geotechnical Engineering.
  • Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Flux Boundary Layers

Technology Areas

  • Space