Monitoring Coastline Change Using Remote Sensing and GIS Technology: A case study of Acigol Lake, Turkey

Acigol is a lake in Turkey's inner Aegean Region, in an endorheic basin at the junction between Denizli Province, Afyonkarahisar Province and Burdur Province. The lake is notable for its sodium sulphate reserves extensively used in the industry and Turkey's largest commercial sodium sulphate production operations are based here. Coastline changes caused by sediment erosion and accretion have important consequences for coastal ecosystems and coastal communities. Coastlines are the natural borders which separate the water and land. Change of coastline has great importance, therefore it is needed to detect this change and take precautions. In this study, for the purpose of detecting the coastline change of Acigol Lake, multispectral Landsat images from the years of 1985, 2000, 2015 were used. Coastline belonging to these years is drawn numerically and coastline change belonging to these years in Acigol Lake is provided with the help of Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing method and software. After the analysis of the changes, it was determined that there was a significant decline in Acigol lake. At the end of the study, significant coastline movements (in some parts more than 200 m) were detected for a 30-year period.