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Mapping of shorelines and monitoring of their changes is challenging due to the large variation in shoreline position related to seasonal and tidal patterns. This study focused on a flood-prone area in the north of Java. We show the possibility of using fuzzy-crisp objects to derive shoreline positions as the transition zone between the classes water and non-water. Fuzzy c-means classification (FCM) was used to estimate the membership of pixels to these classes. A transition zone between the classes represents the shoreline, and its spatial extent was estimated using fuzzy-crisp objects. In change vector analysis (CVA) applied to water membership of successive shorelines, a change category was defined if the change magnitude between two years, T1 and T2, differed from zero, while zero magnitude corresponded to no-change category. Over several years, overall change magnitude and change directions of the shoreline allowed us to identify the trend of the fluctuating shoreline and the uncertainty distribution. The fuzzy error matrix (FERM) showed overall accuracies between 0.84 and 0.91. Multi-year patterns of water membership changes could indicate coastal processes such as: (a) high change direction and high change magnitude with a consistent positive direction probably corresponding to land subsidence and coastal inundation, while a consistent negative direction probably indicates a success in a shoreline protection scheme; (b) low change direction and high change magnitude indicating an abrupt change which may result from spring tides, extreme waves and winds; (c) high change direction and low change magnitude which could be due to cyclical tides and coastal processes; and (d) low change direction and low change magnitude probably indicating an undisturbed environment, such as changes in water turbidity or changes in soil moisture. The proposed method provided a way to analyze changes of shorelines as fuzzy objects and could be well-suited to apply to coastal areas around the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents an unsupervised fuzzy c-means classification (FCM) to observe the shoreline positions. We combined crisp and fuzzy methods for change detection. We addressed two perspectives of uncertainty: (1) uncertainty that is inherent to shoreline positions as observed from remote sensing images due to its continuous variation over time; and (2) the uncertainty of the change results propagating from object extraction and implementation of shoreline change detection method. Unsupervised FCM achieved the highest kappa (k) value when threshold (t) was set at 0.5. The highest k values were 0.96 for the 1994 image. For images in 2013, 2014 and 2015, the k values were 0.95. Further, images in 2003, 2002 and 2000 obtained 0.93, 0.90 and 0.86, respectively. Gradual and abrupt changes were observed, as well as a measure of change uncertainty for the observed objects at the pixel level. These could be associated with inundations from 1994 to 2015 at the northern coastal area of Java, Indonesia. The largest coastal inundations in terms of area occurred between 1994 and 2000, when 739 ha changed from non-water and shoreline to water and in 2003-2013 for 200 ha. Changes from water and shoreline to non-water occurred between 2000 and 2002 (186 ha) and in 2013-2014 (65 ha). Urban development in flood-prone areas resulted in an increase of flood hazards including inundation and erosion leading to the changes of shoreline position. The proposed methods provided an effective way to present shoreline as a line and as a margin with fuzzy boundary and its associated change uncertainty. Shoreline mapping and monitoring is crucial to understand the spatial distribution of coastal inundation including its trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local authorities require information on shoreline change for land use decision making. Monitoring shoreline changes is useful for updating shoreline maps used in coastal planning and management. By analysing data over a period of time, where and how fast the coast has changed can be determined. Thereby, we can prevent any development in high risk areas. This study investigated the transferability of a fuzzy classification of shoreline changes and to upscale towards a larger area. Using six sub areas, three strategies were used: (i) Optimizing two FCM (fuzzy c-means) parameters based on the predominant land use/cover of the reference subset, (ii) adopting the class mean and number of classes resulting from the classification of reference subsets to perform FCM on target subsets, and (iii) estimating the optimal level of fuzziness of target subsets. This approach was applied to a series of images to identify shoreline positions in a section of the northern Central Java Province, Indonesia which experienced a severe change of shoreline position over three decades. The extent of shoreline changes was estimated by overlaying shoreline images. Shoreline positions were highlighted to infer the erosion and accretion area along the coast, and the shoreline changes were calculated. From the experimental results, we obtained m (level of fuzziness) values in the range from 1.3 to 1.9 for the seven land use/cover classes that were analysed. Furthermore, for ten images used in this research, we obtained the optimal m = 1.8. For a similar coastal characteristic, this m value can be adopted and the relation between land use/cover and two FCM parameters can shorten the time required to optimise parameters. The proposed method for upscaling and transferring the classification method to a larger, or different, areas is promising showing κ (kappa) values > 0.80. The results also show an agreement of water membership values between the reference and target subsets indicated by κ > 0.82. Over the study period, the area exhibited both erosion and accretion. The erosion was indicated by changes into water and changes from non-water into shoreline were observed for approximately 78 km2. Accretion was due to changes into non-water and changes from water into shoreline for 19.5 km2. Erosion was severe in the eastern section of the study area, whereas the middle section gained land through reclamation activities. These erosion and accretion processes played an active role in the changes of the shoreline. We conclude that the method is applicable to the current study area. The relation between land use/cover classes and the value of FCM parameters produced in this study can be adopted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]