Assessing the Rate of Shoreline Changes of Rameswaram Island, Tamilnadu, India, using MATLAB Component Runtime Utility & Digital Shoreline Analysis System

The Present study highlights the changes in the coastal tract of Rameswaram island located between the geometric location, latitude 9° 10' to 9° 20' N and the longitude 79° 12' to 79° 30' E. Using Geospatial Technology, Long-term changes have noticed from digitized shorelines taken from Landsat imageries and SOI toposheet for the years 1968, 1978, 1988, 1999, 2009 and 2018. Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) an extension provided by USGS for ArcGIS used to cast transects perpendicular from the baseline, towards the shorelines. High water Line (HTL) has taken as shoreline in this study. The distance between the shorelines has taken from the cast transects plotted from the baseline. For the rate of change calculation, MATLAB component runtime utility for ArcGIS has used. Based on the Linear Regression Rate (LRR) the shore has classified into High Erosion, Low Erosion, Stable and Low Accretion, High Accretion zones. The island has a shoreline length of 78.4 km, and the studies found that 27.83 km (35.41%) of shoreline is accreting nature, 37.90 km (48.21%) of shoreline is stable, and 12.86 km (16.36 %) of shoreline tends to erode. During the field investigation identified that High amount of erosion occurred in the locations near Pamban, Tharavaithopu and Dhanushkodi. Also, Accretion identified over the locations Ayyanthopu, Natarajapuram and Arichumanai tip. Wind action is one of the physical parameters that induced the erosion in some location of this study area.