Application of Remote Sensing in Shoreline Change Detection: Using Multi-temporal Satellite Data

Coastal zones are known for their rich socio-cultural heritage, biological diversity, living resources, and environmental contamination. Application of remotely sensed data for coastal zone study has increased during the last two decades, especially in the field of change-detection analysis. Change detection is also useful in land-use and land cover analysis, monitoring shoreline changes, evolution of coastal landforms, erosion/accretion, and related studies. Manual handling of data for change detection using sequential imagery is a difficult task. Digital satellite data make it easily amenable for computer- aided analysis. Digital data were processed in the laboratory using ERDAS IMAGINE (version 8.5) software. Analysis and interpretation of satellite data were done by digital-image processing. For change detection study, the erosion/accretion and coastal vegetation status were considered. The main purpose of change detection was to help in identifying suitable sites for development of infrastructure around Sagar Island and to control coastal erosion. The coastal land use was used as surrogate information in this study.