Coastal environmental changes in Southeast Asia: A study from Quang Nam Province, Central Vietnam

Abstract

Coastal environments are highly dynamic in nature and are sensitive to natural phenomena such as climate change and anthropogenic activities such as aquaculture or infrastructure development. At the same time, these areas are important in the economic development of the whole country, in which they are situated. Coastal areas in Vietnam are affected by a number of factors, such as climate change, sea level rise, aquaculture, pollution and tourism-related activities. This study investigated the coastal environmental changes in Quang Nam, which is a poorly developed province in Central Vietnam during the 31-year period between 1988 and 2019. For this, we analyzed spaceborne data such as Landsat series and Sentinel 2A, and digital elevation models. The coastal environmental variables analyzed were shoreline changes, changes in overall vegetation and mangrove forests, and the expansion of aquaculture ponds. In order to understand the variations in sea level heights, we analyzed HYCOM data for the period between 1994 and 2014. It has been noted that rapid shoreline erosion occurred along the Cua Dai Beach in recent years and the implementation of soft measures, such as sand bags, helped to reduce shoreline erosion to some extent. The current study also contributes to the global inventory of mangroves as most of the study area was missing in the previously available databases such as the world mangrove atlas.