How to determine coastal erosion in matlab?

Kshitij Singh answered . 2025-02-12 18:25:00

To determine coastal erosion using MATLAB with your dataset, you can analyze changes in the coastline over time by comparing successive shoreline positions. Here are the steps to guide your analysis:

Steps to Analyze Coastal Erosion

1. Understand the Dataset:

• "X" and "Y": Represent the geographical coordinates (latitude and longitude) of the coastline.
• "date": Represents the time associated with each coastline.
• Other variables: Could provide additional context but might not be directly related to erosion.

2. Define Erosion:

• Coastal erosion is typically determined by a landward shift in the coastline over time.
• Define reference points or cross-shore transects perpendicular to the baseline to quantify these shifts.

3. Load and Visualize the Data:

Use MATLAB's Mapping Toolbox to load and visualize the shapefile data.

% Load the shapefile
coastlines = shaperead('path_to_your_shapefile.shp');

% Plot all coastlines
figure;
hold on;
for i = 1:length(coastlines)
    plot(coastlines(i).X, coastlines(i).Y, 'DisplayName', datestr(coastlines(i).date));
end
legend('show');
xlabel('Longitude');
ylabel('Latitude');
title('Coastline Chronology');
grid on;
hold off;
 

6. Determine Erosion/Accretion:

• Negative distances indicate erosion (landward movement).
• Positive distances indicate accretion (seaward movement).

7. Statistical Analysis:

• Compute mean erosion/accretion per transect or coastline.
• Identify regions of significant erosion

meanErosion = mean(erosionDistances, 2); % Mean per transect
significantErosion = find(meanErosion < -threshold); % Define threshold

8. Generate Report or Visualization:

• Highlight eroding transects on the map.
• Create time-series plots of shoreline position for specific transects.

Key Considerations:

• Coordinate Transformation:

  • If "X" and "Y" are in latitude/longitude, you may need to convert them to a Cartesian coordinate system (e.g., UTM) using projfwd or deg2utm for accurate distance calculations.

• Temporal Resolution:

  • Ensure the "date" variable is properly formatted and use it to analyze changes over consistent time intervals.

• Erosion Thresholds:

  • Define thresholds for significant erosion based on the scale of your analysis.

Tools and Functions:

• Mapping Toolbox: For handling and visualizing shapefiles.
• shaperead, plot, interp1: To read and interpolate data.
• Custom Scripts: For transect generation and distance calculation.

This approach provides a framework to quantify and visualize coastal erosion. Let me know if you'd like assistance with specific steps!

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