This document discusses a project to map coastline change along Great Britain over 38 years (1984-2022) using satellite imagery. The project aims to create a database of coastline positions along Britain's 17,000km coastline at 10m resolution. The challenges include processing over 4TB of satellite data to automatically extract waterlines and integrate auxiliary data to produce consistent tide lines. The project brings together the British Geological Survey and ARGANS Ltd to provide coastal change evidence to inform coastal management and help communities adapt to flooding and erosion risks.

1. Assessment of coastline change over the
last 38 years using satellite EO along
Great Britain coast
Joana Gafeira, British Geological Survey
Martin Jones, ARGANS

2. What we will cover in the next 20 mins
British Geological Survey (End User) perspective
• Coasts & Estuaries Geohazards program
• Evidences of historical change at national scale with local resolution
ARGANS Ltd (Service Provider) perspective
• Coastal Erosion from Space - a 3-year ESA project
• Benefits of being part of OCRE-GB project
• Next steps
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BGS mission is to be a trusted provider of data and knowledge on different adaptation
options to the escalating coastal flooding and erosion risks in the UK and internationally.
London Surge Barrier Happisburgh, England Fairbourne, Wales
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“Worldwide, coastal adaptation could reduce the expected impacts of sea level rise
by a factor of 10 to less than $1.5 trillion over the next two centuries”
From Diaz 2016, Climatic Change

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The project goal is to create a database of coastline position for the whole length of
Great Britain (GB) coastlines over the period between 1984 to 2022 (38 years).
The challenges
• ~ 17,000 km coastline length measured at 10 m resolution
• ~ 4TB of satellite imagery that need to be processed
• Waterline extraction automatic quality control
• Integration of Auxiliary data to produce datum tide lines
• Highest mapping accuracy possible
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Monitoring coastal change from space as a service
Brought together leading EO service provider in fast-developing market &
leading provider of geoscientific advice to UK
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Now providing evidences that
underpin policy on managing
coastal flooding and erosion risks
Enabling the translation of EO data into useful and
public information to a broad range of coastal
stakeholders
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7. EO Research & Development
Software Engineering
Sensor Calibration & Validation
User Support & Quality Control
Strategic & Sustainable Planning
Climate Change & Environmental Monitoring
from Space
Nautical Charting & Coastal Mapping
Big Data Management and Analytics
Coastal Zone Management and Coastal Civil
Engineering Solutions
Earth Observation Products & Services
BGS are the UK’s premier provider of objective and authoritative geoscientific data,
information and knowledge to help society to use its natural resources responsibly,
manage environmental change and be resilient to environmental hazards.

8. The Coastal Erosion project
ARGANS Limited and its partners have just successfully delivered a 3-year project
funded by the Science for Society slice of the 5th Earth Observation Envelope
Programme overseen by ESA/ESRIN (the European Space Agency/Space Research
Institute) which commenced 3 April 2019.
More investment in coastal margins as populations grow and
urbanization increase added to increasing severe storm events is a
reality.
Looking for Innovative EO solutions

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• Co-registration
• Optical Waterline
• Optical Shoreline
• Land use land cover map
End-user validation
• Time-series
• WL inter pixel
position
• SL shape accuracy
• SL spatial extend

11. Data Selection and Co-registration
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Cloud cover : 45,08%
Cloud cover : 0,21% Cloud cover : 20,11%

12. Waterline Extraction
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Landsat-8 Waterline
(01/08/2017) Validation for
Pointe-aux-Outardes
ARCTUS product validation
report
GDAL contour
How they are derived
How they are validated
Adaptive Thresholding Technique

13. Shoreline projection
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Shoreline shift
Water height interpolation
Shoreline Timeseries

14. Coastal Land Cover
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Random Forest
from a single image
Random Forest
from 12 images

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Coastal Erosion = Gravel Beach & Cliff Erosion

16. Assessment of coastline change over
the last 38 years using satellite EO
along Great Britain coast