My Expertise
coastal erosion, coastal hazards, extreme coastal storms, ocean waves
Fields of Research (FoR)
Natural Hazards, Physical Oceanography, Ocean Engineering, Marine Engineering, Marine GeoscienceSEO tags
Biography
Scientia Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering
Associate Professor Mitchell Harley is a leading expert in coastal erosion and its global impacts. His research focuses on the development of innovative technologies to enhance the understanding and management of coastal hazards. This includes advancements in coastal remote sensing (from smartphones to satellites), coastal wave climate downscaling, real-time forecasting,...view more
Scientia Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering
Associate Professor Mitchell Harley is a leading expert in coastal erosion and its global impacts. His research focuses on the development of innovative technologies to enhance the understanding and management of coastal hazards. This includes advancements in coastal remote sensing (from smartphones to satellites), coastal wave climate downscaling, real-time forecasting, artificial intelligence, and citizen science. A recognised authority in the field, he frequently provides expert insights on coastal hazards to Australian and international media. In 2017, he founded the CoastSnap citizen science initiative, which has since grown into the world’s largest coastal monitoring program, active in 35 countries across six continents.
My Qualifications
2004 BEng (Environmental) UNSW Sydney
2004 BSc (Oceanography/Meteorology) UNSW Sydney
2009 PhD UNSW Sydney
My Research Activities
Some examples of technologies and programs developed by A/Prof. Harley and his team include:
- CoastSnap community beach monitoring: a global citizen science program (endorsed as a Decade Action for the UN Ocean Decade) that now operates in 35 countries and over 600 permanent monitoring stations worldwide
- CoastSat satellite-derived shorelines: an open-source software toolkit to obtain time-series of shoreline position at any sandy coastline worldwide using publicly-available satellite imagery (developed by Kilian Vos)
- Coastal Hazard Early Warning Systems: numerical-model frameworks to forecast coastal erosion and flooding hazards up to 16 days in advance (in Australia and Italy)
- Rip current detection using AI: computer vision techniques to improve swimmer safety and reduce drownings (with the UNSW Beach Safety Research Group)
- the Narrabeen-Collaroy beach survey program: one of the longest beach survey programs worldwide, started by Prof. Andrew Short in 1976 and continuing for almost 50 years
My Research Supervision
Supervision keywords
Areas of supervision
Currently supervising
CURRENT PHD STUDENTS
- Anmol Goyal (2025-present) Rip current detection from satellites
- David Stead (2025-present) Data-driven storm erosion modelling using high-resolution satellite-derived shorelines
- Rachel Irvine (2024-present) Understanding rip current detection
- Shenyang Qian (2024-present) Rip current detection using AI
- Imee Bren Villaba (2024-present) Extreme Wave Modelling Across Eras:Past, Present, and Future
- Bixuan Dong (2023-present) Shoreline modelling on embayed beaches using planform equations
- Katie Wilson (2022-present) Seasonal forecasting of shoreline change across Australia
CURRENT MPHIL STUDENTS
- Jono Sebban (2024-present) Forecasting the oceanic state at Olympic surfing venues using emerging technologies
FORMER PHD STUDENTS
- Aditya Deshmukh (2021-2024) Wave Climate Projections along the Southeast Australian Coastline using Regional Climate Models
- Chris Lehmann (2018-2022) Regional-Scale Forecasting for Coastal Storm Hazard Early Warning Systems
- Raimundo Ibaceta (2018-2022) Seasonal to Interannual Shoreline Variability in a Changing Wave Climate
- Kilian Vos (2018-2022) Satellite remote sensing in coastal sciences: shoreline monitoring, beach slopes and multi-decadal climate variability
- Nashwan Matheen (2018-2022) An Early Warning System modelling framework for 'hot-spot' erosion forecasting along wave-dominated sandy coastlines
- Tomas Beuzen (2016-2019) Modelling coastal storm erosion using Bayesian networks
- Matthew Phillips (2014-2018) Wave-driven recovery of sandy beaches following storm erosion
- Joshua Simmons (2014-2018) Improved model calibration techniques for predicting coastal storm erosion
My Engagement
ARTICLES IN THE CONVERSATION
- Become a beach scientist this summer and help monitor changing coastlines (The Conversation, 5 Jan 2024)
- Millions of satellite images reveal how beaches around the Pacific vanish or replenish in El Niño and La Niña years (The Conversation, 10 Feb 2023)
- ‘Like 20 tip trucks pouring sand on every metre-wide strip’: how extreme storms can replenish beaches, not just erode them (The Conversation, 12 May 2022)
EXAMPLE MEDIA
- A beach photo with a difference (ABC The World Today, 6 Jan 2025)
- The Sydney beaches that lost 20 metres of sand as big swells return (Sydney Morning Herald, 21 June 2024)
- Wild weather eats into Sydney beaches (Sydney Morning Herald, 5 July 2022)
- Examining the impact of La Niña on our beaches (Swell Net, 21 July, 2022)
- Collaroy residents decry seawall as communities brace for erosion (Sydney Morning Herald, 27 Nov 2021)
- The early warning system being developed to shore up Australia's beaches (Sydney Morning Herald, 15 Feb 2020)
- Sydney weather: Collaroy and Narrabeen suffer beach erosion as huge waves steal 25m of sand (The Guardian, 10 Feb 2020)
- People power utilised to help keep track of coastal erosion (ABC Radio, 2 Jan 2019)
Contact
Publications
ORCID as entered in ROS
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1329-7945