UAV PHOTOGRAMMETRY-BASED MAPPING OF SICILIAN POCKET BEACHES: FIRST APPROACH

The Pocket Beaches (PBs) are widespread throughout the Mediterranean coast and the characteristics of their landscape make them very attractive for tourists. Along the Sicilian coast there are several Pocket Beaches. However, they have no univocal behaviour. Numerous detailed studies on Pocket Beaches have been carried out in recent years; they suggested that geometric physical parameters provide useful information for characterization of embayed coasts. These parameters allow for the analysis of coastal segments exposure to the incident waves and are usually extracted from old dataset or from hazardous fieldworks. In this study, we propose a UAV- photogrammetry-based mapping approach to study the PBs located on the coast of Sicily. With the aid of new technologies, we used drones equipped with very high-resolution camera to acquired orthophotos and 3-D representation of Sicilian PBs. The data obtained by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles were supported by Ground control Points acquired using RTK GPS which helped refine their geo-referencing precision. Computer-assisted approach was adopted to retrieve geometric parameters and eventually coastal geomorphological elements of the PBs.