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Predicting Future Shoreline in Red Sea Area: Geomatics Study

Conference Paper · June 2015

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 Predicting Future Shoreline in Red Sea Area: Geomatics Study

El-Ashmawy, Nagwa1; Hosny, Magdy2; El Shouny, Ahmed3; and Haggag, Ghada4

1 Survey Research Institute, Egypt, nagwa.elashmawy@gmail.com

2 Survey Research Institute, Egypt, maghos@hotmail.com
3 Survey Research Institute, Egypt, & KAU University, Saudi Arabia elshoney2003@yahoo.com
4 Survey Research Institute, Egypt, t_nawawy@yahoo.com

Abstract

The global warming leads to changes in rainfall pattern and a rise in sea level. The impact of the
sea level rising on shorelines can be detected using remote sensing. The prediction of the future
shoreline requires an aid of other field data. The main purpose of this research is to test the
applicability of a proposed method for predicting the shoreline. The proposed method is based on
the integration of several sources of data; sea level fluctuation data, DEM, and current shoreline.
The future shoreline is predicted from the geomatics perspective. A coastal area along the Red
Sea between El-Quseir and Marsa Alam was selected to apply the proposed method. The sea
level fluctuation data were collected from a monitoring tide gauge station in Safaga, the DEM
was generated using leveling points collected by kinematic GPS system, and the current
shoreline was extracted from high resolution satellite image. The proposed method is applicable
for such purpose.

Key words: Shoreline Detection, Remote Sensing, SPOT, Kinematic GPS, Sea Level

1. INTRODUCTION

Sea level rising is a main impact of global warming. One of the main impacts of the sea level
rising is the shoreline variation. Variation in shoreline directly affects land management and
economic development. Therefore extraction of shoreline in current situation will be useful for
several applications like shoreline change detection and coastal zone management. Furthermore,
predicting the future shoreline lead to better land management, national development, hazard
assessments, and environmental protection. Traditional ground surveying techniques can be
utilized for extracting the current shoreline, however this task is difficult, time consuming, and
sometimes impossible for entire coastal system [1]. One of the most effective techniques for
extracting and monitoring shorelines is remote sensing with satellite image processing, [1]; [2];
[3]; [4]; [5]; [6]; [7].
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Nagwa El Ashmawy, Magdy Hosney, Ahmed El Shouny, and Ghada Haggag, (Egypt),

Regional Conference on Surveying & Development

Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 3-6 October 2015
According to [2], sea level variation that affected by metrological factors shows a definite
tendency about whether or not the shoreline is subject to significant changes. Therefore, one way
to predict future shorelines is to estimate the future sea level and determine the physical interface
between land and sea water. From the sea level fluctuation recorded by tide gauges, mean sea
level and sea level trends can be determined [8]. To determine the land-water interface, the land
topography is required. There are several methods to generate a digital elevation models for
coastal areas. Traditional land surveying was known as the most accurate technique, however
this technique is time consuming. Photogrammetric technique is adequate for medium scale
topographic mapping, however it is uneconomic for small areas. One of the techniques that can
be used is an integration between the traditional land surveying and the modern GPS techniques
(kinematic GPS), this technique proofed its efficiency and economy for large scale topographic
mapping for small areas [9]; [10].

The aim of this paper is to propose an integration method for predicting the future shoreline
geomatically. The proposed method depends on sea level fluctuation data collected by a tide
gauge and tides measurements, a digital elevation model (DEM) generated from kinematic GPS
data, and current situation of the shoreline extracted from high resolution satellite image. This
paper consists of five sections; it starts by an introduction and highlights on the main purpose of
the research. The second section describes the study area and the dataset used for this work. The
methodology of the research work is included in the third section. In section four, the results of
the study is discussed. The paper is ended by a conclusion about the proposed method.

2. STUDY AREA AND DATASETS

The selected area for this research is located on the coastal area of the Red Sea in Egypt between
Al-Qusair city and Marsa Alam airport with around 70 km along the Red sea coast and around
300 m across the coast. The area is between latitude 25 35’ N and 26 7’ N. This area is one of
the touristic areas that is under development and needs protection wherever future changes are
expected. Figure 1 shows the location of the study area as appear in Google map.

Predicting Future Shoreline in Red Sea Area: Geomatics Study, 2/9

Nagwa El Ashmawy, Magdy Hosney, Ahmed El Shouny, and Ghada Haggag, (Egypt),

Regional Conference on Surveying & Development

Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 3-6 October 2015
 Figure 1: The location of the study area

The datasets used in this research are of three types; sea level fluctuation measurements and tides
values estimates, Kinematic GPS observations, and a high resolution satellite image. The details
of the datasets are described below.

1. Sea Level fluctuation

The sea level fluctuation measurements are collected from a mounted tide gauge in
Safaga station, where an observation of the sea level has been recorded each 30 minutes
since January 2008 till now. Other historical data were collected from Suez station
between 1944 and 1993 to be used for determining the trend of change in the sea level.
The tide gauge at Safaga is referred to an established bench mark (BM) that is tied to the
national leveling network through precise leveling. A supplying elevation with device
model (PASLTRP-122) is used with two visual tide (VT) gauges fixed on: a) well station,
and b) jetty station, Figure 2. The collected data were analyzed for the Safaga station to
determine the daily, monthly and annual averages.
2. Kinematic GPS Points:
To collect kinematic GPS points to be used in generating a digital elevation model, a GPS
network is established. For collecting points with orthometric heights, 3 ground first
order bench marks of the Egyptian Survey Authority (ESA) located on this area are
included in the established network. The three BM are observed statically for at least 1.5
hours and tied to an ESA first order triangulation station. Four receivers model Trimble
5700 were utilized to collect the field data and Trimble Business Center software (TBC)
was used to process and adjust the observations with 95% confidence level using precise
ephemeris data.

Predicting Future Shoreline in Red Sea Area: Geomatics Study, 3/9

Nagwa El Ashmawy, Magdy Hosney, Ahmed El Shouny, and Ghada Haggag, (Egypt),

Regional Conference on Surveying & Development

Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 3-6 October 2015
 (a) (b)

Figure 2: Visual tide gauge fixed to a) well, and b) jetty

Collecting GPS measurements along the study area were performed using Post-Processed
Kinematic differential GPS (PPK- GPS) method on continuous mode using a GPS
antenna mounted on a pole with observations interval of 5 seconds. The three observed
ESA bench marks were used as reference points (base station). Measurements were
carried out using 3 instruments of Trimble 5700 model, one was installed at the base
station and the other two were used as a rover to survey any points of interest along area
surrounding each base station.
The study area was divided into a number of parallel cross sections perpendicular to the
coastal lines with a length around (500)meters with spacing of about (100)meters.
Around 49,000 points derived from KTK- GPS were collected from field survey and
processed with TBC software. Each point contained the position and orthometric height
depending on data of control stations, (Figure 3).
3. Satellite Image:
The third dataset is a SPOT6 panchromatic and multispectral satellite images covering
the study area. First, the image was geo-referenced using 10 ground control points
collected by Post Processing Static (PPS) GPS technique. The rational polynomial
coefficients provided with the satellite image were used as well in the image geo-
referencing step. Other 14 PPS-GPS points were used for accuracy assessment. The total
root mean square error (RMSE) for the check points was 1.55m. Figure 4 illustrates the
satellite image after geo-referencing.

Predicting Future Shoreline in Red Sea Area: Geomatics Study, 4/9

Nagwa El Ashmawy, Magdy Hosney, Ahmed El Shouny, and Ghada Haggag, (Egypt),

Regional Conference on Surveying & Development

Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 3-6 October 2015
 3. METHODOLOGY AND EXPERIMENTAL WORK

The proposed method for future shoreline prediction consists of two parts; first determining the
future sea level, then the second part is intersecting the water surface and the land DEM to
extract the interface between the future water and land. The work flowchart is illustrated in
Figure 5.

3.1. Determining Future Sea Level

The annual mean sea level are used in addition to the historical mean sea level (1944- 1993) to
develop a linear regression model that was used for determining the annual rate of change in the
mean sea level.

Figure 3: Kinematic observations Figure 4: Satellite Image and GCP

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Nagwa El Ashmawy, Magdy Hosney, Ahmed El Shouny, and Ghada Haggag, (Egypt),

Regional Conference on Surveying & Development

Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 3-6 October 2015
 Tide Sea level Satellite image GPS Observations
measurements measurements

Calculating Rate of sea Image Data

tide at Average level rising registration processing
image Mean Sea
acquisition Level
Calculating Image
time
future sea classification
level
Shoreline
Calculating detection
sea level at
image
acquisition
time

Converting
shoreline into points
with sea level height
Point interpolation

Determining
areas lower DEM generation
than future sea
level

Determining future
shoreline

Figure 5: Flowchart of the proposed method

Predicting Future Shoreline in Red Sea Area: Geomatics Study, 6/9

Nagwa El Ashmawy, Magdy Hosney, Ahmed El Shouny, and Ghada Haggag, (Egypt),

Regional Conference on Surveying & Development

Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 3-6 October 2015
 3.2. Extracting Future Shoreline

To extract the future shore line the following steps were followed
 Extracting current shoreline from high resolution satellite image
The geo-referenced SPOT6 satellite image covering the study area was used. Classification
of the image into water and land was conducted using unsupervised classification
technique. The interface line between the two classes was extracted to present the shoreline.
For accuracy assessment, the extracted shoreline was visually inspected and corrected
wherever the land and water classes were incorrectly classified.

 Determining the sea level at the image acquisition time

Knowing the acquisition time of the satellite image, the tide value was calculated based on
the tides values of the nearest tide station. The tide values of Ras Ghareb tide station were
collected from [11] web site and used. With the information about the mean sea level, the
actual sea level at the image acquisition time were calculated (actual sea level = average sea
level + tide).

 Generating DEM
To generate the DEM, the extracted shoreline was converted into points with elevation
values equaled to the actual sea level at the image acquisition time. These points were used
as a break line to ensure more accurate interpolation of the ground elevation points. The
Kinematic GPS points in addition to the shoreline point were interpolated using Kriging
technique. ArcGIS software was used to generate the ground surface.

 Determining areas lower than future sea level

To investigate which areas of the land may be covered by sea water in the future, areas with
elevation less than the future sea level were extracted. To extract these areas, the cut/fill
task was used with the generated DEM and a plain surface representing the future sea level
to determine the areas with lower elevation (fill areas).

 Extracting Future shoreline

Only the fill areas connected to the current shoreline would be used to form the future
shoreline. Therefore, these areas were merged to the present shoreline. Figure 6 illustrates
the steps of the future shoreline extraction.

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Nagwa El Ashmawy, Magdy Hosney, Ahmed El Shouny, and Ghada Haggag, (Egypt),

Regional Conference on Surveying & Development

Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 3-6 October 2015
 1. Extract current shoreline 2. Determine sea level and 3. Generate DEM
future sea level

4. Determine areas lower 5. expose areas adjacent to 6. Extract future shoreline

than future sea level current shoreline

Figure 6: Steps of future shoreline extraction

4. CONCLUSION

An integrated data can be used for determining the future shoreline. The current shoreline can be
extracted using image processing and remote sensing techniques. The fluctuation sea level
measurements can be used to determine the present mean sea level and the rate of sea level
rising. Kinematic GPS can be used to generate DEM for small areas with large and medium
scale. With information about the topography of the coastal area, current position of shoreline
and the future sea level, future shore line can be extracted.

Predicting Future Shoreline in Red Sea Area: Geomatics Study, 8/9

Nagwa El Ashmawy, Magdy Hosney, Ahmed El Shouny, and Ghada Haggag, (Egypt),

Regional Conference on Surveying & Development

Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 3-6 October 2015
 REFERENCES

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Nagwa El Ashmawy, Magdy Hosney, Ahmed El Shouny, and Ghada Haggag, (Egypt),

Regional Conference on Surveying & Development

Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, 3-6 October 2015

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