Journal of Coastal Zone Management

Abstract

Coastal Changes along Gamasa Beach, Egypt

Bahaa A El-Sharnouby, Kassem S El-Alfy, Osami S Rageh and Mohammed M El-Sharabasy

Gamasa Beach is considered a long strip beach of white sand on the Nile Delta, Egypt. Gamasa resort locates on a very active concave shoreline which covering 30 km along Nile Delta Coast. Two techniques were used to monitoring shorelines, multi-spectral imagery from Landsat satellite and Global Positioning System (GPS) surveying technique. This research paper presents shoreline maps illustrating the shoreline erosion accretion pattern along Gamasa Beach by using different sources of remote sensing data. In the present study, Landsat TM (1984, 1987, 1990, 1999, 2000, 2002), Landsat ETM (2001, 2003, 2005, 2010) and Landsat OLI/TIRS (2013, 2014) satellite images were used. Post-Processed Kinematic (PPK) points are measured by the author for extracting of Gamasa shoreline. Occupation times for survey points are on the order of seconds. Data must be post-processed to achieve high-precision results; this requires a processing program Lecia Office Software. Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) model is used to calculate the annual rate of shoreline change (erosion or accretion) between 1984 and 2014. Rates of shoreline changes are estimated from three statistical approaches of DSAS (End point rate, Linear regression rate, Least median of square). The results were validated with field observations of beach profile survey data at the same corresponding positions and time. Results showed that Gamasa beach had insignificant eroded and lower accretion between 1984 and 2014 with average rates of 5.0 m/year. Finally, shoreline change prediction model for coastal zone at Gamasa beach in years 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050and 2060 is estimated according to DSAS settings and Linear regression rate.