Determining Long-Term Land Cover Dynamics in the South Baltic Coastal Zone from Historical Aerial Photographs
Coastal regions are dynamic environments that have been the main settlement destinations for human society development for centuries. Development by humans and environmental changes have resulted in intensive land cover transformation. However, detailed spatiotemporal analyses of such changes in the...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2021-03-01
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| Series: | Remote Sensing |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/6/1068 |
| _version_ | 1797541740375179264 |
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| author | Andrzej Giza Paweł Terefenko Tomasz Komorowski Paweł Czapliński |
| author_facet | Andrzej Giza Paweł Terefenko Tomasz Komorowski Paweł Czapliński |
| author_sort | Andrzej Giza |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Coastal regions are dynamic environments that have been the main settlement destinations for human society development for centuries. Development by humans and environmental changes have resulted in intensive land cover transformation. However, detailed spatiotemporal analyses of such changes in the Polish Baltic coastal zone have not been given sufficient attention. The aim of the presented work is to fill this gap and, moreover, present a method for assessing indicators of changes in a coastal dune environment that could be an alternative for widely used morphological line indicators. To fulfill the main aim, spatial and temporal variations in the dune areas of the Pomeranian Bay coast (South Baltic Sea) were quantified using remote sensing data from the years 1938–2017, supervised classification, and a geographic information system post-classification change detection technique. Finally, a novel quantitative approach for coastal areas containing both sea and land surface sections was developed. The analysis revealed that for accumulative areas, a decrease in the land area occupied by water was typical, along with an increase in the surface area not covered by vegetation and a growth in the surface area occupied by vegetation. Furthermore, stabilized shores were subject to significant changes in tree cover area mainly at the expense of grass-covered terrains and simultaneous slight changes in the surface area occupied by water and the areas free of vegetation. The statistical analysis revealed six groups of characteristic shore evolutionary trends, of which three exhibited an erosive nature of changes. The methodology developed herein helps discover new possibilities for defining coastal zone dynamics and can be used as an alternative solution to methods only resorting to cross sections and line indicators. These results constitute an important step toward developing a predictive model of coastal land cover changes. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T13:20:03Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-22fb5dbcf84d40188ca56dc1f6f17afb |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2072-4292 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T13:20:03Z |
| publishDate | 2021-03-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Remote Sensing |
| spelling | doaj.art-22fb5dbcf84d40188ca56dc1f6f17afb2023-11-21T10:04:45ZengMDPI AGRemote Sensing2072-42922021-03-01136106810.3390/rs13061068Determining Long-Term Land Cover Dynamics in the South Baltic Coastal Zone from Historical Aerial PhotographsAndrzej Giza0Paweł Terefenko1Tomasz Komorowski2Paweł Czapliński3Institute of Marine and Environmental Sciences, University of Szczecin, 70-383 Szczecin, PolandInstitute of Marine and Environmental Sciences, University of Szczecin, 70-383 Szczecin, PolandInstitute of Management, University of Szczecin, 71-004 Szczecin, PolandInstitute of Spatial Management and Socio-Economic Geography, University of Szczecin, 71-101 Szczecin, PolandCoastal regions are dynamic environments that have been the main settlement destinations for human society development for centuries. Development by humans and environmental changes have resulted in intensive land cover transformation. However, detailed spatiotemporal analyses of such changes in the Polish Baltic coastal zone have not been given sufficient attention. The aim of the presented work is to fill this gap and, moreover, present a method for assessing indicators of changes in a coastal dune environment that could be an alternative for widely used morphological line indicators. To fulfill the main aim, spatial and temporal variations in the dune areas of the Pomeranian Bay coast (South Baltic Sea) were quantified using remote sensing data from the years 1938–2017, supervised classification, and a geographic information system post-classification change detection technique. Finally, a novel quantitative approach for coastal areas containing both sea and land surface sections was developed. The analysis revealed that for accumulative areas, a decrease in the land area occupied by water was typical, along with an increase in the surface area not covered by vegetation and a growth in the surface area occupied by vegetation. Furthermore, stabilized shores were subject to significant changes in tree cover area mainly at the expense of grass-covered terrains and simultaneous slight changes in the surface area occupied by water and the areas free of vegetation. The statistical analysis revealed six groups of characteristic shore evolutionary trends, of which three exhibited an erosive nature of changes. The methodology developed herein helps discover new possibilities for defining coastal zone dynamics and can be used as an alternative solution to methods only resorting to cross sections and line indicators. These results constitute an important step toward developing a predictive model of coastal land cover changes.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/6/1068land coverdune coastair photographSouth Baltic Sea |
| spellingShingle | Andrzej Giza Paweł Terefenko Tomasz Komorowski Paweł Czapliński Determining Long-Term Land Cover Dynamics in the South Baltic Coastal Zone from Historical Aerial Photographs Remote Sensing land cover dune coast air photograph South Baltic Sea |
| title | Determining Long-Term Land Cover Dynamics in the South Baltic Coastal Zone from Historical Aerial Photographs |
| title_full | Determining Long-Term Land Cover Dynamics in the South Baltic Coastal Zone from Historical Aerial Photographs |
| title_fullStr | Determining Long-Term Land Cover Dynamics in the South Baltic Coastal Zone from Historical Aerial Photographs |
| title_full_unstemmed | Determining Long-Term Land Cover Dynamics in the South Baltic Coastal Zone from Historical Aerial Photographs |
| title_short | Determining Long-Term Land Cover Dynamics in the South Baltic Coastal Zone from Historical Aerial Photographs |
| title_sort | determining long term land cover dynamics in the south baltic coastal zone from historical aerial photographs |
| topic | land cover dune coast air photograph South Baltic Sea |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/6/1068 |
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