Morphologische Entwicklung des deutschen Wattenmeeres von 1996 bis 2009, bestimmt aus SAR- und Landsat-Bildern mit der Wasserlinienmethode

The Dutch, German, and Danish Wadden Sea contains some of the largest undisturbed tidal flats in the world of about 10,000 km2. The research areas covered in this thesis are the North Frisian, Neuwerk, and Cuxhaven regions of the German Wadden Sea. The goal of the thesis is to use the waterline method with SAR and optical images to derive topographic maps in order to analyze the morphological development of this valuable ecological system on large spatial and engineering time scales (90 km and 14 years). Compared to earlier applications, the method is improved with respect to the geocoding step and the data coverage of the complete tidal range. The results also allow analyzing smaller scale s developmental details, such as sandbars and estuaries. Topographical maps from 1996 to 1999, and 2004 to 2009 were generated. The largest morphological differences occurred between 2009 and 1996, also observed in the -2 m isobaths map. The Bed Elevation Range of the tidal flats includes all the elevation information from 1996 to 2009 in order to identify the maximum changes during the investigation period. It shows high morphodynamic regions are outer parts of the tidal flat, sandbars, and estuaries. Vertical nodal linear regression gives the direction of the morphological development (erosion or sedimentation). Our result shows that the rate of change is mostly between -0.1 to 0.1 m/yr. Extreme erosion rate reaches over -0.3 m/yr, while extreme sedimentation rate is up to 0.36 m/yr. The absolute amount of elevation change called turnover height has a growth rate of 8.2 mm/yr, indicating the growing morphodynamic activity over the investigation period. The net balance height of the whole investigation region shows an increasing trend of 6.8 mm/yr, demonstrating an overall sedimentation. According to large-scale analyses, the most dynamic areas are the sandbars. Tertiussand, D-Steert, Gelbsand, and Medemgrund/Medemsand are given detailed discussion in this thesis. The west side of the sandbars except for Medemgrund/Medemsand face the high wave and tidal energy arriving from the open North sea, and cause large erosion towards east, while Medemgrund/Medemsand located in the Elbe estuary show migration in the opposite direction. The three cross sections of Tertiussand, Gelbsand and Medemgrund all show clearly increasing elevation if comparing the average elevation over the years 1996-1999 and 2004-2009. Since the areas of Tertiussand and Gelbsand decreased, their increased elevation might relate to internal sediment redistribution. Medemgrund increasead in area, so its increased elevation could be compensated by the adjacent tidal flat Medemsand which has significant erosion towards the north and the sediment brought from Elbe River