Vegetated coastal systems are multifunctional and provide various habitats, sequester carbon, dissipate wave energy and buffer nutrients (e.g., Reddy and DeLaune, 2008; Karstens et al., 2015; Jurasinski et al., 2018; Heckwolf et al., 2021; Buczko et al., 2022). Climate change will impact vegetation patterns and species distribution in the dynamic coastal zone around the globe. Sea level rise might have the largest impact by influencing inundation and salinity regimes, but drivers like temperature, rainfall regimes or the frequency of extreme events will also shape vegetation in coastal landscapes (Osland et al. 2016). Communicating climate induced environmental changes to stakeholders and decision makers can be challenging and traditional materials such as graphs, maps or photos might not be sufficient (Huang et al. 2021). An immersive environment can be transferred by means of virtual (VR), augmented (AR) or mixed (XR) reality. It can offer the possibility to discuss and manipulate virtual scenario representations with experts, policy-makers as well as with the general public. The basis for any virtual environment is the creation of immersive virtual worlds, which are as close to the “real world” as possible. In this process, the terms “digital twin” and “metaverse” are often used in different communities, including design, engineering, natural- and computer sciences but also social and human sciences. While a “digital twin”, a term that is still in discussion and not always clearly defined (VanDerHorn and Mahadevan 2021), aims to mirror an existing item or environment with all relevant physical properties and facets, the metaverse is a post-reality multi-user environment, which merges physical reality with digital virtuality (Mystakidis, 2022) and does not necessary mimic the “real world”. Studies on virtual environments and their use also highlight the need of storytelling within these virtual instances. The best visualization is useless without a guiding line through the virtual environment. So far, most VR and XR visualizations in science communication can be found outside ecology and environmental science, although VR and XR has the power to overcome the abstractness of issues like climate change and turn them into realistic and spatially explicit experiences (Sheppard 2012; Swetnam and Korenko 2019; Huang et al. 2021).
Computer Game engines like EPIC Unreal Engine (UE) and Unity Technologies Unity are becoming an essential tool to build digital twins and virtual instances. Game engines, which provide graphical and physical properties to a user, enable even less experienced game designers and scientists to build own games, models and virtual environments. As they are designed for cross-platform usage, the implementation of VR devices like head mounted displays is guaranteed via engine built-in interfaces and is hence applicable for less experienced users, too.
So far, photogrammetry and structure-from-motion approaches most often aim to create performant 3D models and environments of urban and industrial areas (Toschi et al. 2017; Huo et al. 2021). In contrast, open world environments like a coastal landscape are often characterized by numerous individual plants and textures, which are challenging to image with point clouds or textured meshes. The coastal zone resides between land and sea and the spatial as well as temporal variability and dynamics are a constant challenge (Holzhausen and Grecksch 2021). According to Döring and Ratter (2021) coastscapes are understood as the realm that is shaped by human as well as natural dynamics. Sand, water, vegetation, fauna – all natural elements in coastscapes are inherently interwoven with human–environment relations. The relations people form with their coastscape are “seen, spoken, felt and experienced into existence(s)” (Döring and Ratter 2021: 324). Virtual environments are a powerful tool to visualize different coastscapes, either shaped by changes in natural forcing, by human interventions or by both.
The aim of this study is to obtain an immersive virtual representation of a coastscape in a simple way without having to build a landscape manually. The focus hereby is on the coastal vegetation and changes in species distribution, potentially triggered by climate change impacts. We are linking field generated data (UAV surveys, species mapping) with procedural modeling and virtual reality development using the software Unreal Engine 5. The description of our data-driven workflow is easily transferable to other (coastal) environments and offers a blueprint for scenario communication with coastal stakeholders.