Long-time shoreline monitoring of the vellar estuarine complex, southeast coast of India: Using multispectral satellite data

Abstract

The present study was carried out to track the path of Vellar estuary over a period of 38 years (1970–2008) and also to detect the impact of tsunami on estuarine complex of the Vellar estuary. Visual interpretation techniques were employed by using multispectral data of Landsat TM (1991) and IRS-P6 LISS III (2004, 2006, and 2008) to delineate shoreline changes in the Vellar estuarine complex. Results clearly revealed the changes that occurred along the estuarine path over the period, and severe erosion was noticed in the seaward side of the MGR Thittu and accretion, along the estuarine mouth. It is also visible that there is clear river path shift in the river course. Although the sandbar formation was seen with only little morphologic modification up to 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami that struck this coast (26 December, 2004) distorted the sandbar of the Vellar estuarine mouth; however, the 2006 satellite images confirmed that the sandbar was formed again to its original structure as that of before the tsunami.

Keywords

estuary / geomorphology / IRS-P6 LISS III / shoreline / tsunami / India

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