Abstract
MANDELBROT enunciated the uncertainty of the length of a coastline in his paper “How long is the coastline of Britain?” published in “Science” in 1967. The fractal concept was presented for the first time in that paper and has been applied to many fields ever since. According to the fractal theory and conditions of fractal research of coastline, the controls of faults and biologic function on the fractal character of coastline are preliminarily discussed on the basis of GIS in this paper. Finally, some significant conclusions are drawn: 1) the faults control the basic trends of coastlines of two study areas; 2) the fractal dimension of coastline of Taiwan is smaller than that of Changle — Lufeng, because the faults of Taiwan more intensely control the trend and fractal dimension of the coastline; 3) the larger the fractal dimension of the faults or the major faults, the more the controlling effect of them on the trend and fractal dimension of coastline; 4) the larger fractal dimension of the coastline of Changle — Lufeng indicates that the biologic function intensely shapes the coastline. In a word, the controls of faults and biologic function on the fractal character of coastline are discussed with a case study of China in this paper, it can be seen that faults and biologic function both have influence over the trend and fractal dimension of coastline, the fractal mechanism of coastline of two study areas may be so.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
ANDRLE R, 1996. The west coast of Britain: statistical self-similarity vs. characteristic scales in the landscape[J]. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 21(10):955–962.
Department of Research and Development of National Remote Sensing Center, Institute of Remote Sensing Application, Academia Sinica, 1984. The Atlas of Geo-Science Analyses of Landsat Imagery in China[M]. Beijing: Science Press, 196–197. (in Chinese)
GOODCHILD M F, 1980. Fractals and the accuracy of geographical measures[J]. Mathematical Geology, 12(2):85–98.
GRASSBERGER P, 1983. On efficient box counting algorithms [J]. International Journal of Modern Physics C, 4(3):515–523.
Institute of Seismology of State Seismological Bureau, 1989. The Atlas of Landsat Imagery of Main Active Faults in China[M]. Beijing: Science Press, 108–109. (in Chinese)
JAY Gao, XIA Zong-guo, 1996. Fractals in physical geography [J]. Progress in Physical Geography, 20(2): 178–191.
JIANG J W, PLOTNICK R E, 1998. Fractal analysis of the complexity of United States coastlines[J]. Mathematical Geology, 30(5):535–546.
MANDELBROT B B, 1967. How long is the coast of Britain? Statistical self-similarity and fractional dimension[J]. Science, 156(3775): 636–638.
MANDELBROT B B, 1982. The Fractal Geometry of Nature [M]. Francisco, California: W. H. Freeman and Co., 468.
PAAR V, CVITAN M, OCELIC N, JOSIPOVIC M, 1997. Fractal dimension of coastline of the Croatian island Cres[J]. Acta-Geographica-Croatica, 32: 21–34.
PHILIPS J D, 1986. Spatial analysis of shoreline erosion, Delaware Bay, New Jerseye[J]. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 76: 50–62.
PHILIP S R, 1994. Structural an lithological controls on coastline profiles in Fife, Eastern Britain[J]. Terra Research, 6(3): 251–254.
QIU H, 1988. Measuring the Louisiana coastline—an application of fractals[A]. In: The Association of American Geographers Cartography Specialty Group Occasional. Paper 1[C]. Washington, D. C.: Cartography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers, 1–10.
STOMCZYNSKI WOJCIECH, 1999. How long was the coast of Atlantics? [J]. Mathematical Intelligencer, 21(1):38–42.
TURCOTTE D L, 1992. Fractals an Chaos in Geology and Geophysics[M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 10–40.
ZHU Xiao-hua, YANG Xiu-chun, XIE Wen-jun, WANG Jian, 2000. On spatial fractal character of coastline—A case study of Jiangsu Province[J]. China Ocean Engineering, 14(4): 533–540.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Foundation item: Under the auspices of Innovation Project of Department of Education of China (2001DLXSBJBC12).
Biography: ZHU Xiao-hua (1972 – ), male, a native of Anhui Province, Ph. D. of Nanjing Normal University. His research interest includes fractal application in geography.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhu, Xh., Wang, J. On fractal mechanism of coastline. Chin. Geograph.Sc. 12, 142–145 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-002-0022-z
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-002-0022-z