Mapping recent shoreline changes spanning the lateral collapse of Anak Krakatau Volcano, Indonesia

Abstract

We use satellite imagery to investigate the shoreline changes associated with volcanic activity in 2018-2019 at Anak Krakatau, Indonesia, spanning a major lateral collapse and period of regrowth through explosive activity. The shoreline changes have been analyzed and validated through the adaptation of an existing methodology based on Sentinel-2 multispectral imagery and developed on Google Earth Engine. This work tests the results of this method in a highly dynamic volcanic environment and validates them with manually digitized shorelines. The analysis shows that the size of the Anak Krakatau Island increased from 2.84 km2 to 3.19 km2 during 15 May 2018-1 November 2019 despite the loss of area in the 22 December 2018 lateral collapse. The lateral collapse reduced the island area to ~1.5 km2 but this was followed by a rapid increase in area in the first two months of 2019, reaching up to 3.27 km2. This was followed by a period of little change as volcanic activity declined and then by a net decrease from May 2019 to 1 November 2019 that resulted from erosion on the SW side of the island. This history of post-collapse eruptive regrowth and coastal erosion derived from the shoreline changes illuminates the potential for satellite-based automated shoreline mapping to provide databases for monitoring remote island volcanoes.