Abstract:

The ALeRT (Archéologie, Littoral et Réchauffement Terrestre) project has brought together
researchers involved in coastal archaeology and aims to establish an interdisciplinary approach to
assessing coastal archaeological vulnerability, site monitoring and heritage management. The
scale of the problem and the need for improved field data collection and data management
procedures led us to develop a web and mobile application for adding field data and
administering users. This reduces the time of data collection in the field and widens the
opportunities for collaboration between researchers, heritage managers and the wider community.
Recent extreme weather impacts on coastal archaeology in Brittany has led to a growing
interest in public archaeology initiatives and resulted in a huge mobilisation of the local
population. As a result of this, a specific training programme in coastal archaeology was
developed for coastguards and local communities. The ALeRT network is formed of 30 active
members who cover almost the whole coast of the region, and this network has been recently
augmented through a partnership with the Conservatoire du Littoral, a public wildlife
conservation organisation. In this paper we will focus on the results of the collaborative project
undertaken in 2014 and 2015, when this citizen science approach was put to the test.