Multitemporal assessment of the geomorphologic evolution of the Restinga of Marambaia,Rio de Janeiro,Brazil

The Restinga of Marambaia is an emerged sand bar located between the Sepetiba Bay and the South Atlantic Ocean, on the south‐east coast of Brazil. The objective of this study was to observe the geomorphologic evolution of the coastal zone of the Restinga of Marambaia using multitemporal satellite images acquired by multisensors from 1975 to 2004. The images were digitally segmented by a region growth algorithm and submitted to an unsupervised classification procedure (ISOSEG) followed by a raster edit based on visual interpretation. The image time‐series showed a general trend of decrease in the total sand bar area with values varying from 80.61 km² in 1975 to 78.15 km² in 2004. The total area calculation based on the 1975 and 1978 Landsat MSS data was shown to be super‐estimated in relation to the Landsat TM, Landsat ETM+, and CBERS‐2 CCD data. These differences can also be associated to the relatively poorer spatial resolution of the MSS data, nominally 79 m, against the 20 m of the CCD data and 30 m of the TM and ETM+ data. For the estimates of the width in the central portion of the sand bar the variation was from 158 m (1975) to 100 m (2004). The formation of a spit in the northern region of the study area was visually observed. The area of the spit was estimated, with values varying from 0.82 km² (1975) to 0.55 km² (2004).