Even with the development of modern technological equipment, the Emery-Method is still a widely used and straight-forward tool for measuring beach profiles, especially in tropical developing countries, where often lack of infrastructure and unfavourable climatic conditions, among others, restrict the application of sophisticated electronic devices. This article focuses on its performance in a coastal environment adjacent to mangroves and proposes some modifications to the original method. Examples of applications during a long-term study and findings of error measurements are presented. Inaccuracies result from the properties of different sediment surfaces and systematic errors. For a given error margin, the minimum beach slope should not fall below a certain value.