Thira is one of the most popular touristic destinations of Greece and its 30 beaches accept a big number of visitors during the summer season. Future projections regarding their vulnerability to mean sea level rise suggest that most of them are expected to experience beach loss in amounts between 20-50% of their maximum recorded width.
Pilot Beach - Kamari
Kamari is one of the most touristic beaches of Santorini, located at the SE coast of the island. Due to its orientation, the beach faces high hydrodynamic conditions from the eastern sector. The part of the beach studied within the framework of the ERA-beach project has a length of about 1500 m and maximum width of 55 m. The catchment basin is small in size (a typical characteristic for most islands of the Cyclades complex, with limited riverine supply during intense rainfalls. Mean beach sediment size is -1.7 φ, whereas submerged beachrocks can be found alongshore (at a depth of about 3m). During the last decades, erosion has been prevailing and hard coastal protection works (groynes and offshore breakwaters) have been constructed at the northern margin of the beach, whereas a seawall is present all along the beach.
During the field works campaigns within the framework of the project, high detail topo-bathymetric and bed morphological information will be collected, altogether with records of the technical characteristics of the extensive coastal works amongst others.
