ABSTRACT
The shoreline is a unique and complex feature and has been recognized as such by the International Geographic Data Committee (IGDC), which designates it as one of 27 key distinct features on the earth’s surface. A shoreline is defined as the line of contact between land and a body of water. Although it is easy to define, the shoreline is difficult to capture because of the natural variability of water levels. An accepted method of capturing this line of interface is to determine the tidecoordinated shoreline, which is the shoreline extracted from a specific tide water level. NOAA uses Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW) and Mean High Water (MHW) in this way to map shorelines that can be georeferenced. Both the MLLW and MHW are calculated from averages over a period of 18.6 lunar years. Like the shoreline, shoreline mapping techniques are changing and being improved upon. At present, photogrammetric techniques are employed to map the tide-coordinated shoreline from aerial photographs that are taken when the water level reaches the desired level. Aerial photographs taken at these water levels are more expensive to obtain than remote sensing (RS) imagery. With the development of remote sensing technology, satellites can capture high-resolution imagery with the capability of producing stereo imagery: one such source is the IKONOS satellite images. The question is: is it possible to use RS imagery to map the shoreline so that we can reduce the costs and improve mapping efficiency and accuracy? During our study we extracted shorelines from aerial photos, simulated and actual IKONOS imagery, and the intersection between a Coastal Terrain Model (CTM) and the water level. We estimated the accuracies of these shorelines and analyzed the potential of these techniques for practical shoreline mapping by comparing the extracted dataset with the shorelines from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) topological maps and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) nautical charts.
