Shoreline changes in eastern Parry Peninsula, Amundsen Gulf, Canada

• Main Authors: Tanguy, Rodrigue, Whalen, Dustin, Prates, Gonçalo, Vieira, Gonçalo
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2023
• Subjects: Coastal dynamics; Permafrost; Darnley Bay; Carbon fluxes; Remote sensing; Amundsen Bay; Amundsen Gulf; Parry Peninsula; permafrost
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7572256

As the Arctic warms, permafrost coasts are eroding faster, threatening coastal communities, habitats, and altering sediment and nutrient budgets. The western Canadian Arctic is eroding at a rapid pace, however little is known on changes occurring in the in the Amundsen Bay area. This study was conducted in the eastern coast of Parry Peninsula, a neglected rocky coastal area. We used orthorectified aerial photos of 1965 and 1993 and very-high resolution satellite imagery of 2020 to manually delineate the shoreline and classify the backshore and foreshore typology. Shoreline change rates were calculated and the ArctiDEM was used to derive cliff height, allowing for estimating volume changes and soil organic carbon fluxes. The results show a mean rate of 0.13 m/yr for the backshore zone and 0.2 m/yr for the foreshore, with increasing erosion in the south sector of the Peninsula in the recent decades. The average sediment flux was 19 m 3 /m/yr and The SOC flux 6.7 kg C/m/yr. We highlight the importance of using the clifftop as shoreline reference to accurately estimate sediment fluxes, an approach that is neglected in automatic shoreline delineation techniques based on remote sensing imagery, which generally focus on the identification of the waterline.