How AI and Satellites are Helping Rebuild Sandy Beaches

AS THE world’s oceans grow ever warmer and the seas rise ever higher, coastlines are retreating at a record pace. And with the rising tides, thousands of coastal communities are at risk. The United Nations warns that as many as 1.2 billion people could be displaced by 2050.

But in the Maldives, a low-lying archipelago in the Indian Ocean, researchers are doing something remarkable: They are growing beaches.

The project, born in a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a decade ago, uses artificial intelligence, satellite and ocean current data to predict coastal erosion patterns and create submerged structures that harness currents to coax the beach back.

The company, Coastal Assembly, has regrown the sandy shore, extending the beach some 27 m towards the ocean along a stretch about 91 m long.

A second project built a new sandbar with more than 849.5054 cubic metres of sand in just six months, stirring hope that there may be a way to slow the disappearance of coastal societies.

In the turquoise waters off Kaafu Atoll, the company’s automated intelligence analysed 10 years of satellite imagery, currents and other data to predict erosion patterns.

Then the company designed and installed 54 structures cast from marine concrete blended with sand and crushed shells, arranged in a row of hexagons. The structure is specially designed to break up eroding waves while allowing the flow of currents that accumulate sand and sediment.

Early results are promising. But perhaps most consequential is the technology that predicts and monitors coastal losses. Researchers say it has the potential to aid communities in adapting to climate change by reducing the time and cost of complex coastline modelling, and predicting the areas most vulnerable to erosion.

According to a May report from the United Nations, a lack of data and satellite observations has hindered climate adaptation among island nations.