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Investigation of Kouhestak- Karian Coastline changes using GIS
Saied Choopani, Hossain Hossaini Pour, Mahmood Damizadeh
Agricultural & Natural Resources Research Center of Hormozgan Province
P.O.Box 79145-1577 Bandar Abbas - Iran
Mohammadreza Gharib Reza
Soil Conservation and Watershed management Research Institute
P.O.Box 13445-1136 Tehran - Iran
Abstract
Coastline changes are the most important and common processes in coastal zone. These changes were occurred in coastline of Kouhestak- Karian area in the Persian Gulf coasts in which terrestrial processes directly affect oceanic processes and vice versa. Coastline changes in Karian area contain sedimentary and geomorphologic unit’s transformation, subversion, erosion and substitutions to each other, sedimentation and occurrence of other ones.
The main scopes of this project are determination of the rate of coastline changes in short period (26 years) and long period (quaternary) and determination of effective factors in these phenomena. This research is based on GIS investigations, field operations and laboratory Studies, Preparation of orthophotos for two periods of aerial photo (1967, 1993), GIS studies.
Initial recognition of coastal features, investigation of maps exactness, and sampling of fossils from pale shorelines were done by field operations. Fossil samples were tested by 14C method at Jaber-Ebn-Hian laboratory in Iran. The main achievements are as follow:
1- Sedimentary unit’s polygon maps 2- Coastal landform unit’s polygon maps 3- erosion and sedimentation maps 4- Pale shorelines maps 6- superficial and vertical coastal changes rates and amounts 7- effective factors in coastline changes. Other achievements of this research were obtaining the best method for investigation of coastline changes in the Iran coastal zones, and late quaternary history of coastal Makran zone and coastal Zagros folded zone and areas of Karian area, which need coastal protection.
Introduction
Coastal shorelines worldwide are changing rapidly as a result of natural physical processes and human activities. Natural factors such as sediment supply, wave energy, and sea level are the primary causes of coastal changes, whereas human activities are catalysts causing disequilibrium conditions that accelerate changes.
Coastal features susceptible to change through external forcing usually represent the integrated responsible, the shore zone to a number of interacting environmental variables operating across a broad spectrum of time scale. Whereas the interactive forces and geological and hydrodynamics processes and climate condition causes changes of coastline situation and create transgression and regression coastlines.
The investigation of changes in coastline position or morphology can aid in predicting the life expectancy of coastal infrastructure, but may also point to more complex trends in coastal stability, sediment supply, and crustal movement. It may be difficult to isolate the particular cause of a change is coastal position, morphology, or other properties; or a change in the rate, frequency, or intensity of coastal processes.
The study area is part of the Persian Gulf and is located in North of Hormuz strait, in Hormozgan province, Southern Iran. The total length of area is about 40 km, from east of Bandar-e-kouhestak to west of Bandar-e-Karian. This investigation is based on GIS method Applications, aerial photographs and supported by, topographical maps, Aster Images (2001).
Objective
The objective of this research may be summarized as follows:
- Preparing of sedimentation and erosion maps in the coastal zones using GIS
- Superficial and vertical coastal changes rates and amounts
- Preparing of Paleshorelines maps
- Determination of effective factors in coastline changes
- Prediction of future coastline behavior
- Protection of coastal resources, management of coastal development, reduction of coastal hazards.
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