Author: Marcio DaSilva
DaSilva, Marcio, 2019 Assessing shoreline change associated with the Cape Jaffa Marina, South Australia, Flinders University, College of Science and Engineering
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The coastal zone is a dynamic area which can experience substantial change in short time periods which are in turn associated with weather events and with more substantial long-term morphological trends. The monitoring of shoreline change represents a significant area of interest for coastal communities and management programs responsible for coastal preservation. This research provides a case study focused around the Cape Jaffa Marina in South Australia, assessing shoreline change associated with a constructed canal estate and adjacent coast. The research is comprised of a GIS based analysis of shoreline change utilising (i) Aerial imagery from 1975 to 2005 which provides information of the prevalent morphological coastal trends before the construction of the canal estate, (ii) satellite imagery collected by the CubeSat satellite constellations, Planetscope and RapidEye, to assess the decade since construction, and (iii) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) surveys to assess localised morphological change. The shoreline change was assessed in the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) extension of ESRI’s
ArcGIS (2019) to provide statistics on the net shoreline change and the rates of change of the past few decades. UAV surveys conducted on three separate dates provide high-resolution orthomosaics that have been used to assess shoreline change at a finer-scale (>2 cm pixel) and provide an accuracy assessment for the automated shoreline extraction from the multi-spectral satellite imagery. The results provide a case study of a historically pro-gradational sandy coastline experiencing substantial amounts of alongshore transport, the corresponding barrier effects of coastal infrastructure, and the resulting significant morphological changes to the Cape Jaffa shoreline. The image analysis workflow developed here, based on best-practice remote sensing methods, presents a potentially useful methodology to be applied for an automated shoreline change monitoring program with rapid response capability from the high spatial and temporal resolutions with a relatively low-cost data access of the CubeSat constellations.
Keywords: GIS, Remote Sensing, Shoreline Change, PlanetScope, RapidEye, Satellite, UAV, Drone surveys, Coastal Management, Cape Jaffa, South Australia, Scripted GeoProcessing, Geography, NDVI, NIR, ESRI, ERDAS Imagine, ArcPY, Aerial Imagery, Adapted Thresholding, Image Segmentation, Atmospheric Correction
Subject: Engineering thesis
Thesis type: Masters
Completed: 2019
School: College of Science and Engineering
Supervisor: Graziela Miot da Silva