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Abstract
 
The Modeling of Beach Erosion and Shoreline Changes Supported by Prior Research Based on Video Image Processing in Duck, North Carolina
"You Can Never Step on the Same Beach Twice"
-Heraclitus, Greek Philosopher

Climate change has affected the North Carolina coastal enviroments and coastal hazards have already taken place in the area. Significant adverse impacts in the form of frequent storms and higher rates of beach erosion have been registered, thus, making compelling the necessity of a current understanding of the vulnerability of coastal zones. We propose to study this vulnerability in Duck, North Carolina (location: Lat 36 10 57" N Long 75 45 05" W) utilizing the work of the Army Corps of Engineers at Duck, North Carolina at the Field Research Facility (FRF). Our interest in their work lies on the use of video imagery based techniques (researched, designed, experimented and developed by the Coastal Imaging Lab of Oregon State University) implimented for the capture and understanding of changes of near shore morphology since beaches are continuoulsy changing from geological materials (sands, dead and/or bleached corals...etc) shifted by waves, tides, and currents moving sediments and eroding shorelines; this phenomenon carries very challenging, above all devastating outcomes on coastal communities. We are most interested in the intolerant and dramatic periods of storms and hurricanes (when sediment transport is more energetic [Stockdon and Holman, 2000] and shoreline changes are more rapid) associated with extended could cover when satellite fails to produce images of events occurring during those times.