Filenews 22 March 2023 - by Dora Christodoulou
The 3rd flight in a row with an unmanned UAV was carried out with great success today by the team of the Telescopy and Geoenvironment Laboratory of the Department of Civil Engineering and Geoinformatics of the CUT in collaboration with the Municipality of Peyia, in order to survey Coral Bay.
This work concerns field work in the framework of the research project "BEACHTECH – Coastal erosion due to climate change: assessment and ways of effective response in tourist areas of the North Aegean and Cyprus", funded by the Interreg V-A Operational Programme Greece-Cyprus 2014-2020.
Myria Loizides, executive engineer of the Municipality of Pegeia, participated in the aerial survey of Coral Bay and from the team from the CUT participated Professor Diophantos Hadjimitsis, Dr. Christodoulos Mettas, Evagoras Evagorou, Iosifina Kountouri and Dimitris Christofi.
The project is coordinated by the Laboratory of Coastal Morphodynamics-Management and Marine Geology of the Department of Oceanography and Marine Biosciences - TOTHBE of the University of the Aegean led by Th. Chasiotis, Associate Professor, with partners the North Aegean Region, the Municipality of Pegeia and the Cyprus University of Technology.
Speaking to "F", the person in charge of the project, Professor Diophantos Hadjimitsis, stressed that the proposed project concerns the assessment and management of one of the largest common natural risks for the sustainable development of Greece and Cyprus, namely the erosion of tourist beaches that will have catastrophic consequences on the tourism industry and economy.
"It will be an important step in addressing this great challenge with a complementary and integrated program of actions that will be based on close cooperation and transfer of know-how between Greek and Cypriot Universities and Local Government bodies," he said. "The main results of the project will give significant benefits to the competent authorities, the coastal managers and populations and the tourism industry of the NE Aegean and Cyprus".
According to Mr. Chatzimitsis, it will also record the characteristics of the beaches of Lesvos, Chios and Cyprus and will assess with innovative methodologies the flood risk, coastal erosion and attractiveness of the tourist destination under Climate Change scenarios.
"In addition, through the systems that have been installed", he stressed, "there will be automated monitoring of beaches that will give long-term observations of the change of the coastline and the seashore, information necessary for coastal planning and the carrying capacity and use of the beach. It will provide almost real-time information on coastal conditions such as waves, wind, temperature and UV, which will be disseminated to users through a web application.
