JONES BEACH, N.Y. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and James Madison University invite the public to become citizen scientists at a SandSnap event at the Jones Beach Energy and Nature Center June 5 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. EDT.
Hosted by James Madison University, the public event will introduce participants to the USACE Coastal Inlets Research Program’s SandSnap initiative and emphasize the importance of shoreline management.
Equipped with only a cell phone and any U.S. coin, citizen scientists will help collect beach grain size information by taking photos of sandy beach sediment then uploading the imagery to a designated site from which grain size information can be extracted and returned to a public database.
The goal of the SandSnap initiative is to educate the public, inspire the next generation of coastal scientists and engineers and amass a spatially and temporally robust sand beach grain size database.
”Our beaches are very dynamic, and the beach grain size changes naturally through the seasons or can change through human activities like beach nourishments. Capturing the beach grain size spatial and temporal variations are critical for improving our understanding of the beach system,” said Dr. Brian McFall, a research civil engineer with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center
As part of the USACE mission to deliver vital public and military engineering services during peace and war to strengthen our nation’s security, energize the economy and reduce risks from disasters, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center helps solve the nation’s most challenging problems in civil and military engineering, geospatial sciences, water resources and environmental sciences.
The USACE Coastal Inlets Research Program advances the state of knowledge and develops engineering technology for predicting the waves, current, sediment transport and morphology change at and around inlets. Products improve management and design of coastal inlets through increased reliability of actions and reduction in operation and maintenance costs.