Morphological changes in the southern coasts of the Caspian Sea using remote sensing and GIS

Coastal areas are continuously under the regional changing and interaction of land-sea resulting in the short and long terms deformation. Study of beach morphology has been one of the most important issues in coastal engineering research projects. Managing and controlling the shoreline changes and behavior are essential for all marine projects and integrated coastal zone management policy in such environments. In the present study, Guilan Province region was selected and an analysis of the coastal zone behavior was carried out based on the available satellite images. According to results, we estimated the bed level changes and also submerged area, resulting from a rise in sea level at different locations in the study area (from Anzali Port to Boujagh National Park) and compared them with those obtained from the satellite images. The results were presented graphically and changes in shorelines were estimated using ETM+ sensors and OLI images from 2002 to 2013 which can be used for site selection and design of marine structures and establishing a data base for the coastal zone in the study region. Laplacian filter was applied to satellite images to establish the shoreline and to clarify the effect of ports and coastal structures constructed in the study region on beach and shoreline morphological changes. This study is a combination of remote sensing and GIS systems with field surveys on the ground. The innovation of this work is the application of Laplacian filter for shoreline detection and estimation of the sediment deposition area by calculating the distance between the observed shorelines. This will lead to the better understanding of the effect of coastal structures on the beach morphology using satellite images. The results show the remarkable changes occurred in the shoreline due to the environmental and human-based effects during the eleven years period. The present study can be considered as a contribution to the existing knowledge of the coastal process in the study area and referred to as a basis for the future coastal research projects.