CoRe-ACTS (Coastal Resilience: Action Through Citizen Science) empowers coastal communities to monitor beach erosion using an innovative, low-cost method: Smart Pebbles. These are natural beach pebbles embedded with low-cost sensors: RFID tags. The pebbles are 3D-scanned and geolocated with the help of local citizens so their movement can be tracked over time. By following how pebbles shift with waves, tides, and storms, we can gain valuable insights into sediment transport, erosion hotspots, and coastal change.

Through the Seed Phase, we focused on stakeholder engagement and co-design. We brought diverse stakeholders together to shape the experiment collaboratively, addressing local concerns while remaining scientifically relevant. As part of the Flourish Phase, we held three community events where volunteers tagged, sealed the tags, and scanned pebbles to create digital twins. These activities not only trained the non-experts but also strengthened local ownership and sustained the engagement.

Beaches are special places for walking, swimming, gathering, and connecting with nature’s vastness. By combining advanced technology with citizen participation, this project transforms the timeless hobby of pebble hunting into an opportunity for beachgoers to contribute to science. Participants have a pleasant time and strengthen their connections during pebble-hunting, preparation, and deployment events. At the same time, these activities lay the ground for future evidence-based coastal management as communities learn to prepare and deploy the Pebbles.

In2026, we will deploy the Smart Pebbles and track their movement over time during the Harvest Phase. We also plan to scale up the project through a series of webinars, sharing our methodology with other citizen science initiatives and coastal communities to gain insights in expressions of interest for scaling up.

Through this pilot, we aim to co-design a protocol that can be replicated in other regions.