The shoreline migration and the Delta changes study in the mo-dern Yellow River Delta using remote sensing and GIS

Due to the Yellow River's huge sediment load,frequent floods,and shifts in course,shoreline of the Yellow River Delta changes quickly.To detect the shoreline migrations in the modern Yellow River Delta,a set of Landsat images from 1976 to 2000 were collected and shorelines were interpreted using HWL method.According to the shoreline migrations characteristics,the whole shoreline can be divided into three parts:north section,south section and central section.According to the river course oscillation and the delta progradation direction,the modern Yellow River Delta formation can be divided into four stages:bay silting stage(1976～1981),central progradating stage(1981～1983),southeast progradating and beak-shaped spit formation stage(1983～1996),and river course shift and a new spit forming stage(1996～2000).Du-ring the four stages,with only about 49.3 km2 eroded,there were 378.2km2 new land formed,and net accretion area was 328.9 km2.It is helpful to study the spatial and temporal formation pattern of the modern Yellow River delta.