Remote Sensing for Studying Nearshore Bottom Morphology and Shoreline Changes

The major objective of the present study is to demonstrate how remote sensing approach can be used for studying nearshore bottom morphology and shoreline changes in coastal Tanzania. Two study sites were used. In the first site, remote sensing satellite Landsat Thematic Mapper data was evaluated against known water depths from conventional echo sounding measurement taken on the eastern side of the channel. The correlation between the remote sensing data and the echo sounding mesurement was rather satisfactory, suggesting that the approach can roughly be used to investigate sea bottom morphology in the nearshore areas. In the second study site, remote sensing satellite data from Landsat Thematic Mapper and Enhanced Thematic Mapper were used to investigate shoreline changes along the western side of the channel. The results of the study show that the delta and the shoreline north of the delta is currently accreting, where significant accretion has occurred between 1986 and 2000 than before 1986.