The change and analysis of coastline based on remote sensing measurement

Due to the human activities such as artificial beach and reclaiming land from seawaters along Yancheng´s coastal area in Jiangsu province in recent years, the problems of coastline straightening and the mudflat prograding have become highlighted. Therefore, it is great significant to master coastline change for shore and mudflats exploitation and utilization, environmental protection and Marine disaster assessment. This paper mainly focuses on the following three issues: adopting the high-resolution satellite images to mine spatial data of images and interpret the coastline in different periods; Obtaining coastline information quantitatively and calculating the pattern and speed variation of progradation or erosion of the coastline by choosing 12 cross-sections along Yancheng´s coastal area; Analyzing the impact of human activities on coastline change in typical coast area. Results show that the coastline is straightening intensely influenced by mankind activities. Nearly 40 km of the length of the coastline is cut down between 2007 and 2009, which is rather serious but slowed down in 2009 and 2010. Also, Annual average prograding rate of Yancheng´s coastline is between 44 m and 100 m. The prograding variation has little change in the north of the Sheyang estuary, but great change in the south. Especially, the prograding rate reached 278 m per year from Shuilong port to Chuandong port.