As part of the MONCOSTA project, the CoastSnap platforms at Muelle Vergara and Reñaca, both located in the municipality of Viña del Mar, were inaugurated on May 19. These new platforms bring the total number of local beach monitoring stations in the Valparaiso Region to 8 (Santo Domingo, Algarrobo, Punta de Tralca, Papudo, Maitencillo and Caleta Portales in Valparaiso). As of May 2023, CoastSnap's global network has more than 280 stations in 25 countries, with a presence on six continents.

The inauguration was attended by researchers Waldo Pérez and Idania Briceño (project directors), research assistants Natalia Tapia and Benjamín Castro, and representatives of the Municipality of Viña del Mar Lorena Flores, Jorge Marchant and Gonzalo Cifuentes of the Parks and Gardens Section of the Environmental Services Department.

The CoastSnap system consists of a stainless steel platform placed at a point overlooking the beach, it is used to control the position and viewing angle of the image (Harley et al., 2018). The community participates by taking photographs with their cell phones from the platforms and sharing via social networks, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook (employing a # tag identifier) or via the CoastSnap application. Subsequently, they are downloaded and through image processing algorithms, the photographs are rectified to world coordinates and edge detection techniques are used to extract the position of the coastline, allowing the quantification of the local variability of the beaches of the Valparaiso Region.

We invite the community of Viña del Mar and Reñaca to contribute their photographs through the social networks Twitter, Instagram and Facebook tagging:

#coastsnapmuellevergara

#coastsnaprenaca

Or through the CoastSnap App.