Coastline zone extraction using Landsat-8 OLI imagery, case study: Bodrum Peninsula, Turkey

Coastline extraction is a fundamental work for coastal resource management and coastal environmental protection. Today, by using digital image processing techniques, coastline extraction can be done with remote sensing imagery systems. In this study, Landsat 8 Operational Land Imagery (OLI) data have been the main data source due to free access and sufficient spatial resolution for coast line extraction. This research is focused on determining the coastline length and measuring land area by using Landsat 8 OLI satellite image for Bodrum Peninsula, Turkey. Three commonly used methods have been applied in order to determine sea-land boundary line and its length, and area of the study area. The Automatic Water Extraction Index (AWEI), Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis Technique (ISODATA) unsupervised classification technique and on screen digitizing method was chosen for identification of coastal boundaries. Results of coastline length and land areas of Bodrum by using AWEI, ISODATA and on-screen digitizing are compared with each other. This study shows that with using optimal threshold value, AWEI can be used for coast line extraction method with coherently for Landsat 8 OLI satellite imagery. The overall results show that coastline extraction from satellite imagery can be done with sufficient accuracy using spectral water indices instead of time consuming on-screen digitizing.