A Study on the Shoreline Changes and LAND-use/ Land-cover along the South Gujarat Coastline

Shoreline change dynamics along the coastal districts of South Gujarat is studied by the application of multi-temporal remote sensing datasets. The coastal zone along the three districts of Surat, Navsari and Valsad in South Gujarat, India are reported to be facing serious environmental challenges, especially due to anthropogenic impacts. This study evaluates the decadal changes in historical shoreline changes, using satellite images of Landsat TM, ETM and OLI. The analysis of shoreline changes in these districts revealed significant variations in the form of shoreline erosion. Further, the Land-use/ land–cover(LULC) maps for each district for the year 2014 is prepared using band ratios as a pre-classification step, followed by implementation of a combination of supervised and unsupervised classification called hybrid classification. An accuracy assessment is carried out for each of the datasets and the overall accuracy ranges between 90 - 95%. The LULC study is carried out in order to identify the various classes in this region which are vulnerable to the environmental degradation. The maps prepared in this research will contribute to both the development of sustainable land use planning as well as shoreline protection measures.