El Habti, M.Y.; Zayoun, A.; Zahra, S.F.; Raissouni, A., and El Arrim, A., 2022. Shoreline change analysis along the Tahaddart Coast (NW Morocco): A remote sensing and statistics-based approach. Journal of Coastal Research, 38(6), 1116–1127. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.
The coastal areas are increasingly becoming vulnerable because of natural processes, such as climate change and sea-level change, or man-made effects. In Morocco, these areas are exposed to increasing risks and thus undergoing significant changes characterized by erosion or accretion of the shorelines. The following research outlines the changes for a shoreline length of approximately 17 km on the Tahaddart coast (NW of Morocco), based on an analysis of different shoreline rates. The latter was estimated by automatic analytical techniques using datasets of short and long-term aerial photos and satellite images (between 1972 and 2019) over 47 years. Remote sensing tools and GIS, with its extension digital shoreline analysis system, were used jointly for the evaluation of the shoreline changes during the period of the study. The approaches used in this research to assess the Tahaddart coast changes are the net shoreline movement, endpoint rate, linear regression rate, and weighted linear regression rate. These net rate changes of coastline have been calculated, also on three intervals of times (1972–81, 1981–97, 1997–2019). To facilitate the calculations, this study area was divided into four sectors to analyze Haouara Beach, the Tahaddart littoral spit, the Breich Beach, and the Oued Ghrifa estuary. The result shows that over a period of 47 years (1972 and 2019), more than 87% of the coast was eroded, whereas the remaining 13% endured accretion. This study emphasizes the challenges faced in representing coastline changes and reveals the intensity of the shoreline changes along the Tahaddart coast, which implies the setup and implementation of integrated management, effective environmental protection, and sustainable utilization of coastlines.