According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global mean sea levels may rise from 0.43 m to 0.84 m by the end of the 21st century. This poses a significant threat to coastal cities around the world. The shoreline of Karachi (a coastal mega city located in Southern Pakistan) is vulnerable mainly due to anthropogenic activities near the coast. Therefore, the present study investigates rates and susceptibility to shoreline change using a 76-year multi-temporal dataset (1942 to 2018) through the Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS). Historical shoreline positions were extracted from the topographic sheets (1:250,000) of 1942 and 1966, the medium spatial resolution (30 m) multi-sensor Landsat images of 1976, 1990, 2002, 2011, and a high spatial resolution (3 m) Planet Scope image from 2018, along the 100 km coast of Karachi. The shoreline was divided into two zones, namely eastern (25 km) and western (29 km) zones, to track changes in development, movement, and dynamics of the shoreline position. The analysis revealed that 95% of transects drawn for the eastern zone underwent accretion (i.e., land reclamation) with a mean rate of 14 m/year indicating that the eastern zone faced rapid shoreline progression, with the highest rates due to the development of coastal areas for urban settlement. Similarly, 74% of transects drawn for the western zone experienced erosion (i.e., land loss) with a mean rate of −1.15 m/year indicating the weathering and erosion of rocky and sandy beaches by marine erosion. Among the 25 km length of the eastern zone, 94% (23.5 km) of the shoreline was found to be highly vulnerable, while the western zone showed much more stable conditions due to anthropogenic inactivity. Seasonal hydrodynamic analysis revealed approximately a 3% increase in the average wave height during the summer monsoon season and a 1% increase for the winter monsoon season during the post-land reclamation era. Coastal protection and management along the Sindh coastal zone should be adopted to defend against natural wave erosion and the government must take measures to stop illegal sea encroachments.

Barrier islands (BIs) have been designated as the first line of defense for coastal human assets against rising sea level. Global mean sea level may rise from 0.21 to 0.83 m by the end of 21st century as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Although the Indus Delta covers an area of 41,440 km² surrounded by a chain of BIs, this may result in an encroachment area of 3750 km2 in Indus Delta with each 1 m rise of sea level. This study has used a long-term (1976 to 2017) satellite data record to study the development, movement and dynamics of BIs located along the Indus Delta. For this purpose, imagery from Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS), Thematic Mapper (TM), Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), and Operational Land Imager (OLI) sensors was used. From all these sensors, the Near Infrared (NIR) band (0.7–0.9 µm) was used for the delineation and extraction of the boundaries of 18 BIs. It was found that the area and magnitude of these BIs is so dynamic, and their movement is so great that changes in their positions and land areas have continuously been changing. Among these BIs, 38% were found to be vulnerable to oceanic factors, 37% were found to be partially vulnerable, 17% remained partially sustainable, and only 8% of these BIs sustained against the ocean controlling factors. The dramatic gain and loss in area of BIs is due to variant sediment budget transportation through number of floods in the Indus Delta and sea-level rise. Coastal protection and management along the Indus Delta should be adopted to defend against the erosive action of the ocean.