Journal of Coastal Research

23

691698

West Palm Beach, Florida

May 2007

Coastline Change Assessment at the Aegean Sea Coasts in

Turkey Using Multitemporal Landsat Imagery
Semih Ekercin
Istanbul Technical University
Remote Sensing Division
Ayazaga Campus/Maslak
Istanbul, Sariyer 34469 Turkey
ekercin@itu.edu.tr

ABSTRACT
EKERCIN, S., 2007. Coastline change assessment at the Aegean Sea Coasts in Turkey using multitemporal Landsat
imagery Journal of Coastal Research, 23(3), 691698. West Palm Beach (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.
This paper focuses mainly on the coastline movements at the northeast coasts of the Aegean Sea in Turkey. The
Aegean Sea is a semiclosed sea that has unique geographical features and covers an area of 191,000 km2. The study
area includes the coastal zone located between the southeastern part of the Meric River mouth and the Dalyan Lake
coasts. The Meric Delta has accreted toward the Aegean Sea as a result of sediment discharge and transport. In
contrast to this, the width of the natural land barrier between the Aegean Sea and the Dalyan Lake has decreased
over the years because of coastal erosion. These processes have caused the morphological changes of coastline along
some parts of the northeast coasts of the Aegean Sea. In this study, these changes were examined by using satellite
data from Landsat MSS, TM, and ETM collected between 1975 and 2001. In the image processing step, registration,
ISODATA classification, and temporal image ratioing techniques were used to carry out coastline change assessment.
At the end of the study, significant coastline movements (in some parts more than 200 m) were detected for a 26year period.
ADDITIONAL INDEX WORDS: Coastal zone management, change detection, digital image processing, multitemporal
image data.

INTRODUCTION
The coast is a difficult place to manage, involving a dynamic natural system that has been increasingly settled and pressurized by expanding socioeconomic systems (TURNER, 2000).
It is currently estimated that in excess of 37% of the global
population (over 2.1 billion people) lives in coastal areas (VITOUSEK and MOONEY, 1997). Human activities are modifying
the patterns of water runoff and the delivery of nutrients and
sediments to coastal waters (LI et al., 2003).
On the other hand, remote sensing studies on coastal areas
have been carried out by many scientists for many years (EURICO and RICHARD, 2003; WALKER and HUDSON, 2003). Remote sensing offers great opportunities for obtaining information about this type of application. The repetitive acquisition and synoptic capabilities of remote sensing systems can
especially be exploited to provide timely spatial data (WHITE
and EL-ASMAR, 1999). The main purpose of remote sensing
projects, including coastal applications, is to detect and monitor coastline movements. The rates of erosion and deposition
in a coastal zone, for example, can be easily detected by using
multitemporal satellite data at low cost.
Some of the most important factors that result in coastline
movements are coastal erosion, sediment transport, and deposition. It is well known that coastal movements appear at
very dynamic coastlines such as some sections of the Aegean
DOI:10.2112/04-0398.1 received 31 October 2004; accepted in revision
20 May 2005.

Sea, which is a semiclosed sea and covers an area of 191,000

km2 (Figure 1A).
In this study, the coastal zone located between the southeastern side of the Meric River mouth and the Dalyan Lake
coasts (here, the northeast coasts of the Aegean Sea very near
to Dalyan Lake is called as the Dalyan Lake coasts) was examined. The Meric Delta has accreted toward the Aegean Sea
as a result of the sediment discharge and transport that occur
especially at the lower water discharge condition. In contrast
to this, the width of natural land barrier between the Aegean
Sea and Dalyan Lake has decreased over the years because
of coastal erosion. These processes were analyzed with the
use of multemporal Landsat data for a 26-year period.

STUDY SITE
The Aegean Sea is surrounded by the western coasts of
Anatolia from the east, the southern coasts of Thrace and
eastern Macedonia from the north, the eastern coasts of
Thessaly and Peloponnesus peninsula from the west, and the
islands of Crete and Rhodes from the south (Figure 1A). The
Aegean Sea is a semiclosed sea that has unique geographical
features and covers an area of 191,000 km2 (GOKSEL et al.,
1999). The area selected for this study is located between the
southeastern part of the Meric River mouth and the Dalyan
Lake coasts (260047 and 260406 E; 404147 and
404424 N) and covers an area of 4 by 5 km. The geographic
location of the study site is presented in Figure 1.

692

Ekercin

tory of the Remote Sensing Division of Istanbul Technical

University.

Methods
Registration

Figure 1. Location of the study area with the panchromatic band from
Landsat-7 ETM, 2001.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Materials Used
Landsat image data have been widely used in coastal research for many years. This is because of its widespread
availability and unrivaled length of record (since 1972), but
also because the grain, extent, and multispectral features
make Landsat suitable for a variety of environmental applications at regional and global scales (HUDAK et al., 2002). In
this study, three MSS images acquired in 1975, 1977, 1982,
two TM images from 1987 and 1992, and one ETM image
from 2001 were used as satellite sensor data. Further information about the specifications of satellite data used in the
study is given in Table 1. Additionally, 1:25,000-scale topographic maps produced by General Command of Mapping
were used to gather ground control points (GCPs) for georegistration operations. These maps were compiled to NATO
level A standards (TURKER and GACEMER, 2004). Also, 1:
50,000-scale bathymetric maps were another data source for
evaluation of the coastal zone in the study. Image processing
and interpretation processes were performed in the labora-

The geometric registration process was carried out by using

Erdas Imagine 8.5 image analysis software. The finest resolution (Landsat-7 ETM Pan) image was used as the base image (SAITO et al., 2003). For this purpose, ETM, 2001 Pan
data were first referenced to the UTM (zone 35) projection by
using 20 map-derived ground control points (EKERCIN, 2003;
ORMECI and EKERCIN, 2001; TURKER and GACEMER, 2004).
The MSS (1975, 1977, 1982) and TM images, (1987, 1992)
were then registered to the geocorrected ETM, 2001 Pan image by means of image-to-image registration (EL-ASMAR and
WHITE, 1997). The number of GCPs used for these processes
was approximately 40 for each image (for a 4 by 5 km study
area). Experience suggests that 10 to 15 control points will
give acceptable results for a small image area and a firstorder fit (M ATHER, 1987). The nearest neighbor resampling
technique and a first-order polynomial transformation were
used to create the output images with 80-m ground resolution
because the study area presents an almost flat topography,
especially along the coastline (METTERNICHT and ZINCK,
1998).
The requirement of registration accuracy may vary from
one task to the other. For example, it has been reported that
a registration accuracy of less than one-fifth of a pixel is required to achieve a change detection error within 10% (CHEN,
ARORA, and VARSHNEY, 2003; DAI and KHORRAM, 1998). In
this study, the root mean square error of the transformations
was not permitted to exceed 0.2 pixel for each process and
the accuracy of registration was evaluated on test points.

Image Enhancement
Spatial Filtering. The type of filter used mainly depends on
the requirements of the problem concerned. Filters suppress
(de-emphasize) certain frequencies and pass (emphasize) others. High pass filters pass high frequencies and emphasize
fine detail and edges. Low pass filters, which suppress high
frequencies, are useful in smoothing an image and may re-

Table 1. Specifications of Landsat data used in the study.

Sensor

Date

Landsat-2 MSS
Landsat-2 MSS
Landsat-4 MSS

01.06.1975
21.05.1977
01.09.1982

Landsat-5 TM

21.07.1987
11.07.1992
20.08.2001

Landsat-7 ETM*

Band (m)

4:
5:
6:
7:
1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
7:
Pan*:

0.500.60
0.600.70
0.700.80
0.801.10
0.450.52
0.520.60
0.630.69
0.760.90
1.551.75
2.082.35
0.520.90

Spatial
Resolution
(m)

Pixel Size
after Resampling
(m)

Path/Row

80

80

195/32
182/32

30

15

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80

182/32
181/32
182/32

Coastline Changes at the Aegean Sea Coasts

693

Figure 2. Accretion in the Meric Delta in the period 1975 to 2001. (A) (B) (C) The near infrared band (0.80 to 1.10 m) from Landsat MSS, 1975, 1977,
and 1982. (D) (E) (F) The near infrared band (0.76 to 0.90 m) from Landsat TM, 1987, 1992, and Landsat ETM, 2001.

duce or eliminate noise. A low pass (mean) filter tends to

generalize the image. Furthermore, edge detection filtering
is used to delineate edges surrounding objects and to highlight abrupt discontinuities (FINKL, BENEDET, and ANDREWS, 2004).
In this study, low pass filtering and edge detection filtering
were used to enhance the images and to delineate landwater
boundaries. Experimental results show that the use of 3 3
low pass and then edge detection filtering give the best results, especially for enhancement of historical satellite data
(MSS, 1975).
Spectral Rationing. Ratio images are used in remote sensing projects for several purposes, such as reduction of scene
illumination, differentiation of areas of the stressed and unstressed vegetation, and detection of temporal changes. The
use of temporal difference and temporal ratio images might
be especially useful for distinction and interpretation of
changes in an area of interest. Procedure is to simply register
two images and prepare a temporal difference image by subtracting (or a temporal ratio image by dividing) the digital
numbers (DNs) for one date from those of the other (LILLESAND and KIEFER, 1987). Areas of change will have higher
or lower ratio values for ratio images and negative or positive
values for difference images. In this study, temporal differ-

ence images and temporal ratio images were used to detect

the coastline change at the Aegean Sea coasts for a 26-year
period. In order to delineate the landsea boundary, band-4
(for MSS and ETM comparison) and band-7 (for TM and ETM
comparison) were used for establishing temporal difference
and ratio images. All processes were performed by using the
operation algorithm of ERDAS Imagine 8.5.

Classification and Coastline Determination

There are many techniques used for coastline determination, such as image segmentation, level slicing, and vectorization of classified image. Here, iterative self-organizing data
analysis (ISODATA) classification and raster-to-vector conversion processes were used to obtain the landsea boundary
(ARMENAKIS et al., 2003).
The unsupervised classification approach involves minimal
user input (no user specified training data) and requires the
computer to determine spectrally separable classes (FINKL,
2000). Shorter wavelengths allow some penetration through
water, giving a more gradational effect and making exact delineation of the coastline difficult. Problems of high reflectance offshore due to surf in the breaker zone are also ameliorated by using shortwave infrared data (EL-ASMAR and

Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2007

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Ekercin

Figure 3. Position of coastlines mapped in 1975, 1987, and 2001. (A) Location of the sample points on the near infrared band from ETM, 2001. (B) (C)
(D) (E) Vector maps showing changes at the position of coastline between the Meric Delta and the Dalyan Lake coasts.

Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2007

Coastline Changes at the Aegean Sea Coasts

695

WHITE, 2002; FROUIN, SCHWINDLING, and DESCHAMPS,

1996; WILSON, 1997). For this purpose, band-4 for MSS and
band-7 for TM and ETM (near infrared and shortwave infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum) were selected as
input data for the classification process. Firstly, an unsupervised classification was performed for 1975, 1987, and 2001
registered satellite images. A 40-class ISODATA classification was performed to a 95% convergence threshold by using
the ISODATA algorithm of ERDAS Imagine 8.5. The resulting spectral signatures were then recoded as land and water
(REES, WELLIAMS, and VITEBSKY 2003). After the classification process, the boundaries of the classified regions are
subsequently vectorized by using the raster to feature conversion algorithm of the ArcMap GIS software.

RESULTS
To perform coastline change analysis, coastline movements
were evaluated in terms of accretion of coastline and coastal
erosion. The results outlined below address the types and
rates of coastline movements that occurred at the region and
the reasons why.

Coastal Accretion and Erosion

Figure 4. (A) Coastline change in the period 1975 to 2001 (m) sampled
at 250-m intervals along the coast. Negative values indicate erosion, positive values indicate accretion. (B) Acceleration of rates of coastline
change (m y2) comparing the period 1975 to 1987 to the period 1987 to
2001. Positive values indicate acceleration of rates of change; negative
values indicate deceleration of rates of change.

The results of this study show the complex pattern of

change along the coastline between the mouth of the Meric
River and the Dalyan Lake coasts. The resulting coastline
vector maps indicate that the Meric Delta accretes toward
the Aegean Sea because of the sediment discharge while the
sandy beach area near the Dalyan Lake coasts is eroded because of the significant wave direction (SW) of the coast and
sediment transport. These processes have caused the morphological changes of coastline along the northeast coasts of
the Aegean Sea.
Few published rates of coastal research exist for the Dalyan because this region includes the border between Turkey
and Greece. One of the most important studies was carried

Table 2. Rates of coastline changes measured from satellite data at 20 sample points.

Y (m)

Coastline Change
19751987
(m)

Coastline Change
19872001
(m)

Total Change
19752001
(m)

417618.53
417760.44
417931.26
418117.84
418317.57
418530.44
418727.54
418844.46
418995.22
419148.63
419309.97
419413.12
419461.61
419552.78
419654.36
419761.15
419789.26
419836.59
419899.70
419947.03

0
137
166
110
185
62
31
26
18
0
0
33
0
11
41
46
72
92
90
90

252
95
42
35
23
39
60
16
60
40
22
0
47
75
52
35
94
57
14
28

252
232
208
145
208
101
29
10
42
40
22
33
47
64
93
81
166
149
104
62

UTM Coordinates (Zone 35)

Number of
Points

X (m)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

4509927.07
4509716.84
4509543.39
4509362.06
4509204.38
4509049.33
4508852.24
4508644.38
4508448.66
4508250.28
4508051.91
4507829.73
4507637.14
4507402.72
4507178.72
4506949.50
4506693.83
4506425.64
4506157.45
4505889.25

Positive values indicate seaward accretion of coastline; negative values indicate erosion.
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Ekercin

Figure 5. Detection of coastline changes with the help of temporal ratio and difference images derived from Landsat MSS, TM, and ETM collected in
1975, 1987, and 2001, respectively. (A) MSS4-ETM4. (B) TM7-ETM7. (C) MSS4/ETM4. (D) TM7/ETM7.

out by MAKTAV and KAPDASLI (1995). They stated that sand

bar formation along the coastline is seen almost in sequence.
This kind of formation can only occur at coasts that have very
strong longshore and onshoreoffshore sediment transport.
The impact of the dynamic structure of coastline is evident
in Figure 2. The images indicate that an intensive sediment
transport has occurred for years around the Meric River
mouth, which results in coastline advance toward to the Aegean Sea.

Taking all these results into account, we compared the vector maps extracted from satellite data at 250-m intervals for
determination of rapid changes; this was found to be an appropriate resolution to detect detailed patterns of change. To
identify which of these changes are most problematic, we calculated changes in two periods (1975 to 1987 and 1987 to
2001) between the three image acquisitions. The quantities
of change between coastlines were measured manually on the
digital integrated vector map at every sample point and per-

Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2007

Coastline Changes at the Aegean Sea Coasts

pendicular direction to the coastline (Figure 3A). At this

point, the feasibility of Landsat data for coastal applications
should be discussed. WHITE and EL-ASMAR (1999), as an example, demonstrated that Landsat data can be used to map
changes of dynamic coastal landforms.
Figure 3 presents the location of sample points and vector
maps showing changes along the coastline. The vector maps
indicate that the most rapid areas of erosion are at the Dalyan Lake coasts (Figures 3E and 4A), although other areas
show less dramatic changes. The rate of change in this region
is more than 100 m along the coast. Conversely, the area
around the southern mouth of the Meric River shows an important coastline advance (more than 200 m) toward to the
Aegean Sea (Figures 3B and 4A). The eroded sand is transported northward and deposited at the southern side of the
Meric River mouth.
The results also indicate that decreasing sediment discharge leads to an observed deceleration of coastline advance
at the Meric River mouth. This case can be seen in Figure
4B by the deceleration of rates of change at sample points
from 1 to 4. In general, a complex pattern of sediment redistribution is apparent along the coast. The accreting sections
are adjacent to eroding sections. The rates of change for all
sample points are given in Table 2.

Change Detection with Ratio Images

In a ratio image, the black and white extremes of the gray
scale represent pixels with the greatest difference in reflectivity between the two spectral bands. The darkest signatures are areas where the denominator of the ratio is greater
than the numerator. Conversely the numerator is greater
than the denominator for the brightest signatures. Where denominator and numerator are the same, there is no difference
between the two bands (SABINS, 1996). It can be said that
this is basic information for interpretation of ratio images.
We used this technique to interpret temporal ratio and difference images.
The resulting ratio images verify the coastline changes obtained from the vector maps. Figure 5 illustrates four ratio
images generated from the near infrared (MSS4-ETM4,
MSS4/ETM4) and shortwave infrared (TM7-ETM7, TM7/
ETM7) bands of multitemporal Landsat data by subtracting
and dividing. As may be seen in Figure 5, especially at the
Dalyan Lake coasts, very bright signatures indicating coastline change are systematically apparent along the coastline.
In addition to this, darker tones that also indicate coastline
change appear around the Meric Delta.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The results of this study demonstrate that coastal movements such as erosion and deposition have caused the morphological changes at the northeast coasts of the Aegean Sea.
Coastal accretion is most significant at the southern side of
the Meric River mouth because of sediment deposition, with
the maximum coastline advance about 250 m. Also, coastal
erosion is dramatically apparent at the Dalyan Lake coasts.
Another essential point is that there is no scientific research on coastal inventory that includes all the coasts of

697

Turkey, which is surrounded by three seas, the Aegean Sea,

the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. For this purpose,
an inventory database should be constituted immediately. At
the same time, coastline movements should be analyzed in
terms of morphologic conditions periodically (at least yearly)
by using the synergy of the integration of remote sensing and
geographic information systems and the results should be
evaluated in a database.
One of the most important results of this study is the importance of using historical satellite data. It is most probable
that they are the most important data sources for coastal
studies dealing with multitemporal change detection.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author would like to thank Prof. Dr. Cankut Ormeci
and Dr. Cigdem Goksel for their generous support. Also, the
helpful comments of two reviewers are gratefully acknowledged.

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