Evaluating Tidal and Wave Corrections on Shoreline Extraction from Satellite Imagery in Mediterranean Microtidal Beaches

Accurate monitoring of shoreline variations is essential for effective coastal management and determining the consequent mitigation strategies, accounting for the critical effect of coastal erosion. Remote sensing technology has greatly enhanced the capability to analyze these dynamic environments, especially in the last years, thanks to the high resolutions of the recent sensing instruments. However, the accuracy of shoreline extraction methodologies can be influenced by natural phenomena such as tides and wave action, which can cause significant temporal variations in instantaneous shoreline positions. Therefore, incorporating tidal and wave corrections is crucial to refine these automated outputs. This study investigates the impact of tidal and wave corrections on a set of satellite-derived data from an automated tool. A comparison of shorelines derived from Sentinel-2 and PlanetScope images is presented. The results demonstrate high accuracy, with a mean absolute error ranging from 2 to 4 meters, across three tideless Mediterranean beaches. Tidal and wave corrections did not significantly impact the accuracy of the results. Due to the augmented reliability of the extracted shorelines, further detailed analyses will highlight the role of this correction in multitemporal images.