Spatiotemporal Changes of Coastline over the Yellow River Delta in the Previous 40 Years with Optical and SAR Remote Sensing

Quantao Zhu,Peng Li,Naishuang Bi,Houjie Wang,Sixun Pu,Zhenhong Li,Xiao Wu

doi:10.3390/rs13101940

Abstract

The integration of multi-source, multi-temporal, multi-band optical, and radar remote sensing images to accurately detect, extract, and monitor the long-term dynamic change of coastline is critical for a better understanding of how the coastal environment responds to climate change and human activities. In this study, we present a combination method to produce the spatiotemporal changes of the coastline in the Yellow River Delta (YRD) in 1980–2020 with both optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite remote sensing images. According to the measurement results of GPS RTK, this method can obtain a high accuracy of shoreline extraction, with an observation error of 71.4% within one pixel of the image. Then, the influence of annual water discharge and sediment load on the changes of the coastline is investigated. The results show that there are two significant accretion areas in the Qing 8 and Qingshuigou course. The relative high correlation illustrates that the sediment discharge has a great contribution to the change of estuary area. Human activities, climate change, and sea level rise that affect waves and storm surges are also important drivers of coastal morphology to be investigated in the future, in addition to the sediment transport.

Highlights

Introduction published maps and institutional affilAs one of the most active, complex, and fragile regions in the world, coastal, estuary, and river delta areas that are densely populated and economically developed contribute little to global landmass, where hydrosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and human society interact very frequently [1]
Many large river deltas in the world are facing the impacts of shoreline change, and the study of delta erosion and expansion has attracted the attention of the scientific community and policymakers [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]
We investigate the influence of annual water discharge and sediment firstly introduce combination for extracting the coastline of the Yellow River Delta (YRD) with load as well as criticalwe sediment on thea changes of method the coastline

Summary

Introduction

As one of the most active, complex, and fragile regions in the world, coastal, estuary, and river delta areas that are densely populated and economically developed contribute little to global landmass, where hydrosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and human society interact very frequently [1]. Accurate and dynamic monitoring of the changing coastal and delta zone is critical for a better understanding of how the Earth’s surface system responds to human activities. As one of the most important topographic elements on land and sea maps, coastline is named as one of the 27 most important surface features by the International Geographic. Many large river deltas in the world are facing the impacts of shoreline change, and the study of delta erosion and expansion has attracted the attention of the scientific community and policymakers [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. The change of coastline has an extremely important impact on the security of ports, the change of coastal ecological environment, iations.

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Conclusion