Coastal areas are attractive for human populations as they are important areas of business and socio-economic activities. The Prefecture of Western Greece is experiencing population movement from the urban to the coastal areas causing nuisance and changes to the marine environment. These changes need to be assessed systematically in order to build models that can predict the evolution in the future. In addition, except for the man-made infrastructures, natural phenomena such as undulation, wind and coastal currents affect the shape of the beach, the shoreline and the seabed.

Remote sensing is an efficient way to measure these changes repeatedly using high resolution satellite data, air photos and airborne Lidar in conjunction with Digital Surface Models (DSMs) and orthophoto maps. These methods have disadvantages as they are high cost, especially in cases where multitemporal data is deeded.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) photogrammetry, offers a reliable alternative solution to the acquisition of high accuracy spatial data along the littoral zone, representing a rapid low-cost tool for coastline monitoring.