Over the last summer our drone survey team was busy optimising methods for measuring change in the coastal environment change. We now have a comprehensive set of 3D models and imagery from 30+ field sites. Advantages of drone technologies include the ability to cover more ground and a greater range of habitats than we can manage in ground-based surveys alone, yet the resolution of these methods is impressive. Each model covers several hundred metres of coast and the size of each pixel is < 1 cm on the ground! We are using the drone data to assess intertidal area changes which are potentially some of the most important and long-lasting earthquake impacts e.g. where the area of characteristic zones has been reduced from their pre-quake size. Within these areas we are using photogrammetric methods to follow seaweed recovery, building on earlier trials of options for this type of analysis (see Recover issue 3).