Assessment of shoreline oscillations along south Gujarat coastline, India

Abstract

<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:" times="" new="" roman";="" mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";mso-bidi-font-family:mangal;="" mso-ansi-language:en-in;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:hi"="">In the present study, the coastline change analysis of South Gujarat along the west coast of India has been taken up for a detailed investigation. Historical satellite imageries from Landsat ETM+ are used to estimate the positions of the shoreline along this stretch of the coast, for various years. A finite-difference based numerical model was also setup for the selected coastal stretch to estimate the shoreline changes. The coastlines extracted from the first few satellite imageries are used to calibrate the numerical model, where as the rest are used to validate the numerical model. Based on the numerical model, attempt is also made to predict the fate of the coastline in the near future. An average erosion rate of about 4 m/year is estimated along the South Gujarat coastline. It is also observed in the predicted coastlines from 2018 to 2033 the average erosion ranges from 32.55 m in 2018 to 61.79 m in 2033. The details of the data, numerical model and analysis are presented in this paper. </span>