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The present study is a basic part of developing a joint GIS-based coastline typology to determine various geomorphic types of landforms (natural/ anthropogenic) along the Western Black Sea coast. The main purpose is to develop a web geomorphic classification for this part of the Black Sea coast, covering both Bulgaria and Romania. The research is focused on inventory the multipurpose maritime hydraulic constructions (harbour and coastprotection types) built along the Bulgarian-Romanian coast and to point out on their functions and effects. Setting-up of a common catalogue to all types of maritime structures for the Bulgarian-Romanian part of the Western Black Sea coast will help the establishment of unified technical terminology. The results are an important step to create a common classification criteria based on geomorphologic and engineering research approaches for identifying natural landforms and technogenous objects along the both coastlines [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to explore coastline alterations and changes to the beaches of Varna Bay, North Bulgarian Black Sea coast, between 1908 and 2007. A large number of different types of port and coast-protection structures have been constructed along the coast of the study area, over a 100-year period. As a result of human activities i.e. building of harbour, navigational channels, coastal dike and solid groin system, the coastline of study area and adjacent beaches have been significantly modified. Various sources of shoreline position data were used to detect long-term coastal changes: the historical map of Varna Bay at a scale of 1:10 000, from 1908; and the modern satellite image from 2007. Data processing and analysis were performed in GIS environment, as both map and satellite image were preliminary geo-referenced. An indicative segmentation by landform units (beaches/cliffs) and technogenous units (port/coast-protection structures) of both historical and current coastlines was produced to identify changes caused by anthropogenic influence. On the basis of coastline segmentation, an assessment of technogenous impact on the study area, both in 1908 and 2007, was done to quantify the increased extent of human intervention. The results clearly indicate that the long-term coastline/beach changes could be mainly considered as human-induced. Furthermore, at many sites the coast was irreversibly modified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantifying accurate coastline length is important for management applications, such as coastal classification/land cover use, erosion and environmental monitoring. However, due to the dynamic nature of the coastline, measuring its length with high accuracy has turned out to be a difficult research task. By far, different values of the Black Sea coastline length have been determined and these values range between 4020 km and 4500 km. Potential reasons for this could be mostly associated with various data sources and different methods applied. In this context, the study presents recent results for the Black Sea coastline length, which have been obtained during generation of the geo-data base at the IO-BAS. For this purpose, a number of 24 satellite images (Landsat 7) were used. Data processing and analysis were methodologically supported by GIS techniques for precise measurement of the coastline length. In addition, new results for the Black Sea total area were also obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]