Coastal mapping around shore parallel breakwaters

Surveying very shallow coastal areas can be a logistically difficult and time-consuming process. Mapping the emayments around a series of shore parallel breakwaters at Sea Paling on the south-east coast of England has proven an interesting challenge for a new radar-based remote mapping technique. This technique uses the wave behaviour visible as sea clutter on a marine radar to infer the underlying water depth that caused the observed wave behaviour, allowing large areas of the seabed to be mapped without having to deploy boats or people.