Coastal Vegetation

Description

The project Dynamic of coastal beaches and dunes and its participation as an element of stabilization in the morphology of the beach front, aims to monitor the vegetation cover of the backshore of Sisal to understand the effect of the marine dynamics and the depth of the water table in its spatio-temporal distribution, as well as its resilience to storm-wave events.

The objectives of the project are:

Monitor the presence of vegetation through video monitoring and field work, as well as its coverage and abundance.
Seasonally monitor the depth of the water table and its electrical conductivity as a measure of salinity
To analyze the correlation between the presence-absence of vegetation and the marine hydrodynamics, as well as with depth of the water table.

The video images allow to monitor the variations in the vegetal cover with a temporary resolution of minutes (images are counted every half hour), allowing to clarify the identification of events resulting in changes in vegetation. The project also involves contributions of researchers from the Faculty of Sciences and the Institute for Research in Applied Mathematics and Systems (IIMAS) both from the UNAM.

The images of the video monitoring system of Sisal have allowed to identify a pattern of variation in the vegetation of the backshore (Figure 1) that seems to be related to storm-wave events. The process to determine the percentage of sand/vegetation covering on the emerged beach has been automated based on the system of recognition of spectral patterns in images and pixel properties (Figure 2).