Articles | Volume 14, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-14-329-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-14-329-2026
Research article
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08 May 2026
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 08 May 2026

Coastal process understanding through automated identification of recurring surface dynamics in permanent laser scanning data of a sandy beach

Daan Hulskemper, José A. Á. Antolínez, Roderik Lindenbergh, and Katharina Anders

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Cited articles

Abdulsalam, M. B., Jaramillo, C., De Freitas, L., González, M., and Antolínez, J. A. A.: Assessing shoreline orientation variation across diverse coastal environments, Coast. Eng., 200, 104770, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coastaleng.2025.104770, 2025. a
Anders, K., Winiwarter, L., Lindenbergh, R., Williams, J. G., Vos, S. E., and Höfle, B.: 4D objects-by-change: Spatiotemporal segmentation of geomorphic surface change from LiDAR time series, ISPRS J. Photogramm., 159, 352–363, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2019.11.025, 2020. a, b, c, d, e
Anders, K., Winiwarter, L., Mara, H., Lindenbergh, R., Vos, S. E., and Höfle, B.: Fully automatic spatiotemporal segmentation of 3D LiDAR time series for the extraction of natural surface changes, ISPRS J. Photogramm., 173, 297–308, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2021.01.015, 2021. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k
Anders, K., Winiwarter, L., and Höfle, B.: Improving change analysis from near-continuous 3D time series by considering full temporal information, IEEE Geosci. Remote S., 19, 1–5, https://doi.org/10.1109/LGRS.2022.3148920, 2022. a, b, c
Anders, K., Kempf, D., Albert, W., Andriushchenko, P., Huang, X., Hulskemper, D., Isensee, T., Kapitan, D., Tabernig, R., Weiser, H., Winiwarter, L., Zahs, V., and Höfle, B.: py4dgeo: Open-source scientific software for topographic change analysis in 3D/4D geographic point clouds, SoftwareX, 34, 102670, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2026.102670, 2026. a, b, c
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Editorial statement
Hulskemper et al. report on a data-driven investigation and predictive modelling of Earth surface dynamics captured by high-resolution 4D remote sensing datasets. Their study shows how to integrate massive remote sensing observations to increase our process understanding in coastal morphodynamic research.
Short summary
We developed a new method to automatically detect and group short-term topographic changes on sandy beaches using hourly 3D laser scans collected over three years. By distinguishing variations in patterns of sand deposition and erosion, the approach allows scientists to study how beaches change at different moments in time and link these changes to environmental conditions like winds, waves or bulldozers, improving understanding and prediction of dynamics of sandy beaches.
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