Mitchell Harley
Scientia Senior Lecturer, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW Sydney
Dr. Mitchell Harley is a Scientia Senior Lecturer in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNSW Sydney. Mitchell is an expert in coastal erosion and how it impacts coastlines worldwide. His research entails the use of advanced monitoring technologies to enhance understanding and prediction of coastline change. After completing his PhD at UNSW in 2009, Mitchell spent 5 years in Europe leading developments of Early Warning Systems to forecast coastal erosion risk. Upon returning to Australia in 2015, he now leads the historic Collaroy-Narrabeen coastal monitoring program – one of the longest-running beach monitoring programs worldwide. In 2017 Mitchell founded the CoastSnap citizen science beach monitoring program that is now established in 16 countries worldwide. Mitchell is presently State President (NSW) of the Australian Coastal Society, to advocate for coastal issues Australia-wide.
Research Interests:
Coastal erosion
Extreme storms
Coastal monitoring
Citizen science
Recent Publications:
Vos, K, Harley MD, Splinter KD, Walker A, Turner IL (2020) Beach slopes from satellite-derived shorelines, Geophysical Research Letters, https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL088365
Ibaceta R, Splinter KD, Harley MD, Turner IL (2020) Enhanced coastal shoreline modelling using an Ensemble Kalman Filter to include non-stationarity in future wave climates, Geophysical Research Letters, https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020GL090724
Gallop SL, Vila‐Concejo A., Fellowes, TE, Harley MD, Rahbani M, Largier JL (2020) Wave direction shift triggered severe erosion of beaches in estuaries and bays with limited post‐storm recovery. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 45(15), pp.3854-3868, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/esp.5005
Castelle B and Harley MD (2020) “Extreme events: impact and recovery”, in: Jackson D and Short AD Sandy Beach Morphodynamics, Elsevier, 533-556, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102927-5.00022-9
Vos K, Splinter, KD, Harley MD, Simmons JA and Turner IL (2019). CoastSat: A Google Earth Engine-enabled Python toolkit to extract shorelines from publicly available satellite imagery. Environmental Modelling & Software, 122, p.104528, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364815219300490
Vos K, Harley MD, Splinter KD, Simmons JA, Turner IL (2019) Sub-annual to multi-decadal shoreline variability from publicly available satellite imagery. Coastal Engineering, 150, pp.160-174, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coastaleng.2019.04.004
Harley MD, Kinsela M, Sánchez-García E, Vos K (2019) Shoreline change mapping using crowd-sourced smartphone images. Coastal Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coastaleng.2019.04.003
Beuzen T, Harley MD, Splinter KD, Turner IL (2019) Controls of variability in berm and dune storm erosion. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 124(11), pp.2647-2665, https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2019JF005184
Phillips MS, Blenkinsopp CE, Splinter KD, Harley MD, Turner IL (2019) Modes of berm and beachface recovery following storm reset: observations using a continuously scanning lidar. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 124(3), pp.720-736, https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018JF004895
Lazarus E, Harley MD, Blenkinsopp CE, Turner IL (2019) Environmental signal shredding on sandy coastlines. Earth Surface Dynamics, 7, pp.77-86, https://esurf.copernicus.org/articles/7/77/2019/
