Coastline extraction using remote sensing: a review

Abstract

Coastlines are important basic geographic elements and mapping their spatial and attribute changes can help monitor, model and manage coastal zones. Traditional studies focused on the accuracy of extraction methods and the evolution characteristics of coastlines. Thanks to the advances in remote sensing for earth observations, recent coastline extraction studies can reveal detailed ocean-land interaction changes. In this review, we aim to identify key milestones in coastline extraction using remote sensing by associating the emergence of major research topics with the occurrence of multiple application fields, multiple data sources, and multiple algorithms. Specifically, we define coastlines that can be applied to different application fields, summarize the characteristics of coastline products, and analyze the principles, advantages and disadvantages of methods. On this basis, we discussed the development direction and the challenges involved. This study provides practical insights that can be incorporated into the future development of coastline extraction approaches using remote sensing technologies.