An Assessment of Recent Changes in the Niger Delta Coastline Using Satellite Imagery

Abstract

In Nigeria, there is dearth of studies on recent changes on accelerated marine processes along the national coastlines despite their importance as ports for navigation and marine commerce as well as a bridge for aquatic and terrestrial life.This study, which deals with a time series analysis of recent changes in the Niger Delta Coastline using Satellite Imagery is an attempt at filling this gap. Landsat TM images of 1986 and Landsat ETM+ of 2003 both covering the Niger Delta area of Nigeria were used for this study and the images were processed using Erdas Imagine Version 8.7 and Arc Info 9.1 for the GIS operations. The results of the analyses show among other things that coastline erosion was dominant over accretion of sediment deposition. Also that the total area of observed changes along the coastlines was 46.535sq.km. Of this, 27.65sq.km (59.43%) constitutes eroded area, and 40.57% representing 18.88sq.km of the area showed coastal sediment accretion.