The extraction of coastline from the radar image involved
a series of processes because of the inherent noise “speckle noise”
and the environmental conditions at the time of the image acquisition.
Besides noise reduction, another goal of the study was to
reduce the problem of the strong backscatter caused by the effect of strong wind over the sea surface. Wind induced noise is a very
common problem in the extraction of coastlines over fjords and
channel areas; especially where water surface is roughly close to
the shoreline. Hence, adequate methods for eliminating speckle
and detecting the shoreline was fundamental in achieving and
extraction of reliable and consistent coastline over indented and
navigational areas. The tide in the east coast of Kuala Terengganu
at the time of RADARSAT-1 image acquisition diurnal tide. High
tide occurred at mid-day at 2 PM, while the ebbing tide occurred
twice, in the early morning with the minimum height of 0.7 m at 6
AM and again in the evening with the minimum height of 1.8mat 9
PM on March 31, 2005.