Detection of the morphologic change on tidal flat using intertidal DEMs

The objective of this study is to detect a inter-tidal topographic change in a decade. Waterline extraction is a one of widely used method to generate digital elevation model (DEM) of tidal flat using multi-temporal optical data. This method has been well known that it is possible to construct detailed topographic relief of tidal flat using waterlines In this study, we generated two sets of tidal flat DEM for the southern Ganghwado. The DEMs showed that the Yeongjongdo northern tidal flat is relatively high elevation with steep gradients. The Ganghwado southern tidal flat is relatively low elevation and gentle gradients. To detect the morphologic change of tidal flat during a decade, we compared between early 1990's DEM and early 2000's DEM. Erosion during a decade is dominant at the west of southern Ganghwado tidal flat, while sedimentation is dominant at the wide channel between the southern Ganghwado and Yeongjongdo tidal flats. This area has been commonly affected by high current and sedimentation energy. Although we are not able to verify the accuracy of the changes in topography and absolute volume of sediments, this result shows that DEM using waterline extraction method is an effective tool for long term topographic change estimation.