Metadata Report for BODC Series Reference Number 686227

• Metadata Summary

• Problem Reports

• Data Access Policy

• Narrative Documents

• Project Information

• Data Activity or Cruise Information

• Fixed Station Information

• BODC Quality Flags

• SeaDataNet Quality Flags

Metadata Summary

Problem Reports

No Problem Report Found in the Database

Data Access Policy

Public domain data

These data have no specific confidentiality restrictions for users. However, users must acknowledge data sources as it is not ethical to publish data without proper attribution. Any publication or other output resulting from usage of the data should include an acknowledgment.

The recommended acknowledgment is

"This study uses data from the data source/organisation/programme, provided by the British Oceanographic Data Centre and funded by the funding body."

Narrative Documents

Sea Palling Beach Surveys - November 2005 to January 2006

BODC Processing

The data were received by BODC in ASCII format.

The data were then transferred to QXF using BODC transfer process 383. Following the transfer to QXF, the data were visualised within the in-house EDSERPLO package for quality control purposes.

BODC Parameter Code Mapping

Data Quality

There are no reported or observed problems with these data.

Project Information

LEACOAST-2 Project

Project overview

During the floods of January 1953, Europe's worst natural disaster for over two centuries, the Norfolk coastline suffered a great deal of damage. The serious breach of the sea defences at Sea Palling warranted the largest scheme of offshore reefs in the UK to be built to protect the coast and the low-lying farm land behind it.

These shore-parallel reefs were constructed in two phases. An increased understanding of the performance of the reefs following the first phase of construction allowed the second phase to be designed to provide sufficient sea defence but control the levels of environmental impact.

Aims

The LEACOAST2 (Liverpool - East Anglia Coastal Study 2) project is a 3-year programme (2006-2009) funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. LEACOAST2 aims to:

• Evaluate the effects of the breakwaters on the whole beach system over two years
• Provide enhanced tools for improving the design guidelines for coastal defences

The research is focussed on:

• Developing existing numerical models of the environmental processes at the breakwaters to include new factors such as waves breaking over the structures
• Testing the sensitivities of several models of the local environment
• Developing and testing an engineering model to predict long-term changes in beach shape
• Extensive measurements of the waves, currents and beach shape to provide data for the models and to identify sediment transport pathways
• Long-term monitoring of the change in coastline shape using advanced video and radar techniques
• Improving the understanding of how the shore-parallel breakwaters at Sea Palling operate and interact with sediment sources and adjacent areas to provide better coastal management

Methods

Over months and years, the sea defences at Sea Palling interact with the adjacent beaches. To include these beaches within the LEACOAST2 programme the researchers use computer models, advanced field monitoring equipment and make measurements on the beach and just offshore at Sea Palling.

The field measurements include:

• Rapid Global Positioning System (GPS) surveys
• Acoustic current meters
• 5-camera video system
• X-band radar
• Side-scan sonar imaging of bedforms

Data Activity or Cruise Information

Data Activity

Sea Palling Surveys

Survey Strategy

Surveys of the beach morphology and near-shore bathymetry of Sea Palling have been made at approximately monthly intervals. The purpose of these surveys was to monitor the growth or erosion of the salients behind the sea defences and to observe the transport of sediment through the region. The surveys are conducted from a quad bike for the land based portion and a Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) for the bathymetric portion.

The survey patterns for the beach survey attempt to follow lines of "break-in-slope" with the assumption that the beach is of constant slope between these lines. The nearshore surveys cannot follow "breaks-in-slope" so a spiral pattern is adopted within the embayments and shore-parallel lines are surveyed seaward of the breakwaters.

Survey Instrumentation

The positioning system used is a Topcon 5Hz Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) which has been enabled to receive Global Positioning System (GPS) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) signals. This system can receive up to 24 satellite signals at one time (known as channels), although in practice, only up to 12 channels are in use.

The RTK system allows a single reference station to provide real-time corrections to a GPS / GLONASS positional fix, allowing the accuracy of the surveys to be increased to the order of 1cm.

For the land-based survey portion the RTK positional data are logged by a Topcon FC controller at a point spacing of 1 - 3m.

For the nearshore surveys the RTK signal feeds a National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA0183) string to a Valeport MIDAS echosounder at 2Hz. The output of a MICROSTRAIN 3DGX1 motion sensor (pitch, roll and heading) are also recorded. The motion sensor outputs at 75Hz, but this is resampled to match the sampling rate of the positional data and the sounding log.

Related Data Activity activities are detailed in Appendix 1

Fixed Station Information

No Fixed Station Information held for the Series

BODC Quality Control Flags

The following single character qualifying flags may be associated with one or more individual parameters with a data cycle:

SeaDataNet Quality Control Flags

The following single character qualifying flags may be associated with one or more individual parameters with a data cycle:

Appendix 1: S_P_survey

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