Visitors of Holiday Beach in Amherstburg are being invited to participate in a research study that monitors shoreline erosion and changes over time.
Two CoastReach stands have been set up at Holiday Beach Conservation Area, letting people place their phone in a cradle, snap a photo, scan a QR code and share it directly with researchers.
Essex Region Conservation Authority's director of conservation services Kevin Money says the stands are located directly on the beach in front of the washrooms.
"The goal of this is to have engagement among the people who are using that site and enjoying that conservation area to contribute to showing how the beach is dynamic in changes."
He says one of the reasons Holiday Beach was chosen was because ERCA started to see 15 years ago a significant amount of erosion at the site.
"We've lost many feet of our beach actually. Probably five years ago there was high lake levels, and due to the high lake levels it really ate a lot of our beach away, as well as some of trees that were along the shoreline there. So we know that we experience erosion there and as a result we actually had to put in a small breakwall."
Money says grad students from the University of Waterloo will lead the project.
He says if someone takes a photo following a big storm, researchers can gather information just from the photos.
"They get a better sense of how the shoreline is actually eroding, not eroding, is it going to be depositing sand in certain situations. Those types of things. They can look at the weather patterns and the lake waves."
Money says the camera stands remain in place over the multi-year project.
He says Hillman Marsh is next to have stands installed, with discussions underway to install more throughout the region.