Abstract
Long-term assessment of beach morphodynamic is a great challenge to understand future trajectories of these landforms. In France, in 2012, a national strategy for an integrated management of shoreline has been adopted. This one lead to creation of research labels (SOERE and SNO) which aim to sustain scientific researches dedicated to sandy beach morphodynamic in response to various hydrodynamics forcing. Shoreline monitoring on selected pilot sites is conducted within network where normalized protocols and high quality data are guaranteed at long-term scale. The French coastline also extend in tropical zone through its ultramarine territories. Tropical shoreline are among the most sensitive environment however they remain poorly studied. Since, 2012, Reunion island, a French department in Indian Ocean, integrated the SOERE network. Coral reef and coral beaches which preferentially developed on the western coast are frequently threatened by major swell event associated with tropical cyclones or long period swell. Since now, the beach trend evolution and morphogenic processes have not been quantified. However past monitoring exists which has consisted in topographic measurement along beach profile based on empirical protocols which produced biaised data. Since its integration within SOERE network, DGPS survey are now conducted along the different coral beach compartments of Reunion Island at seasonal and post-storm scale. This study aims to capitalize historical and DGPS beach topographic data in order to quantify long term and post-storm beach response and recovery from Cap Champagne to Trou d'Eau.