Scripps researchers use LiDAR to forecast bluff collapses NBC Los Angeles [Video]

California’s coastline is constantly changing and a group of scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography is keeping a laser-focused eye on those changes thanks to some pretty advanced technology.

“You see differences on our beaches every day if you look,” said Dr. Adam Young, a coastal geomorphologist, who heads up a project regularly surveying San Diego’s coast using LiDAR technology.

“LiDAR stands for light detection and ranging,” said Young. “It’s essentially a laser mapping system.”

Researchers mount LiDAR scanners onto trucks, ATVs, or drones and then traverse the coast. The scanners send out roughly 500,000 light pulses per second, which bounce off of the land’s surface and then back to the scanner.

The data is then used to create extremely high-resolution, three-dimensional maps of the coast that can detect details down to just a few centimeters.

Researchers take that detailed map and compare it to previous scans of the same …