Remote Sensing Methods for Climate Change Impact Assessment on Port and Coastal Infrastructure: A Systematic Review and Conceptual Framework

Due to their location at the land–sea interface, ports are highly vulnerable maritime infrastructure zones to compounding climate impacts, including rising sea levels, coastal flooding, extreme weather hazards, and shoreline erosion. In this context, remote sensing has become an essential tool for monitoring coastal dynamics and supporting climate impact assessments. This study offers an exhaustive synthesis of remote sensing methods initiated to evaluate the impact of climate change on coastal and maritime infrastructure. The overview assesses common satellite data sources, with a particular emphasis on the long-term Landsat archives and higher-resolution Sentinel-2 imagery, and discusses their suitability for analyzing shoreline and coastal changes. We examine commonly used satellite data sources, contrasting the long-term historical depth of the Landsat archive (30 m resolution, active since the 1970s) with high-frequency, modern Sentinel-2 imagery (10–20 m resolution). Methodologically, we analyze the quantitative performance of spectral water indices, demonstrating how replacing near-infrared with shortwave infrared (SWIR) bands in the Modified Normalized Difference Water Index (MNDWI) significantly improves shoreline extraction in engineered environments by eliminating spectral confusion from artificial surfaces and turbid water. This paper evaluates past research through three metrics: shoreline extraction modelling, water extraction indices and spectral indices. The role of multi-temporal satellite time series and cloud-based platforms, especially Google Earth Engine, is highlighted as a major advancement in large-scale, long-term coastal monitoring. Additionally, the integration of remote sensing outputs within Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for port-scale vulnerability assessments is analyzed. The synthesis shows that, while remote sensing techniques have been widely applied to natural coastlines, port-specific applications remain limited. Existing studies often have limited fine-scale integration of shoreline dynamics with detailed port infrastructure data, and face challenges related to spatial resolution, high-dimensional spectral data, and uncertainty in engineered coastal environments. In light of these findings, this study identifies key research gaps and future research paths, emphasizing the need for integrated, high-resolution port earth observation and GIS frameworks to support climate adaptation and resilience planning for critical port infrastructures.