Monitoring shoreline change using remote sensing & GIS: a case study of Padang Coastal Area, Indonesia

Abstract

Padang city is a township at the outskirt of Arau River. Arau River often overflowed flooding the region city. To reduce this flood the Dutch government constructs the flood relief channel in 1926. The construction of this flood relief channel has resulted supply of sediment from Arau River to the coast become less which in turn caused the abrasion on the coast of Padang. In order to minimize the problem, the Department of Water Resources Management of West Sumatera has constructed several groins and jetties perpendicular to the shoreline. Thus, there is a vital need to conserve these constructed groins and jetties so that the shoreline equilibrium is protected. Here, monitoring changes in shoreline helps to identify the nature and processes that caused these changes. Over the past few years, Remote sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) offer potential methods to solve many coastal erosion problems by providing a means for generating information, regular monitoring and analysis to predict and visualize future scenarios. The repetitive acquisition and synoptic capabilities of RS and GIS can be exploited to provide timely spatial data for coastal, enabling detection and monitoring of coastline movement. This paper therefore highlights the coastal monitoring processes and analyzing the shoreline change using RS and GIS techniques.