Cala Millor Coastal Station Endurance Line

Systematic and sustained high quality measurements of nearshore waves and beach morphology are crucial to unravel the effects of global warming on sandy coasts and thus be able to assess the validity of sediment transport numerical models. Such measurements are also key to understanding the morphodynamic processes that determine how the beach evolves. In 2011 a comprehensive beach monitoring program, the first in the Mediterranean Sea, started at Cala Millor Beach on the island of Mallorca (Spain). The aim was to provide long-term datasets of near-shore morphodynamics in a carbonate sandy micro-tidal and semi-embayed beach fronted by a Posidonia oceanica seagrass meadow. The dataset includes topobathymetries, shoreline positions obtained from video cameras, meteorological parameters from a weather station, currents, as well as waves and sea level from ADCP measurements and sediment size. This free and unrestricted archived dataset can be used to support the modelling of erosion-deposition patterns, calibrate beach evolution models, and as a result to propose adaptation and mitigation actions under different global change scenarios.