Beach profiling of pocket beaches in the Maltese islands

Abstract

The coastline of the Maltese Islands is characterised by a very limited number of small pocket beaches. The lack of a fixed backshore and a limited number of fixed monuments in these beaches poses a difficulty to coastal researchers in order to set reference points along which transects could be successively drawn year after year. Even though Global Positioning System (GPS) is being used as a replacement of these permanent monuments the accuracy of such system typically varies by a few meters. In this study, the precision of the GPS as a substitute to these backshore permanent monuments was tested. Beach profiling is a useful beach-monitoring tool used to identify and quantify sediment changes on a beach. One of the purposes of this dissertation was to investigate the accuracy of the Emery Board technique, a simple beach profiling methodology, by comparing it to the Engineering Level technique. In· order to carry out this test, both methodologies were used to beach profile Ramla Bay, Gozo. A comparison of this method in 20 different profiles shows its viability as a reliable tool in identifying trends in sediment changes in small pocket beaches. When compared with the Engineering Level, this technique proved it had significantly lower costs, higher portability and greater ease of use. The same study was used to set a baseline research to monitor beach changes in Ramla Bay. During the analysis of this research, an unusual increase in sediment volume and profile length was observed in the winter profile. In order to gain evidence of the exact beach dynamics of Ramla Bay, further research needs to be done.