So i'm doing a project on coastal erosion. I have historical maps (1846, 1903, 1943) and also a present map, a map of the geology of the area (sands and gravel mainly), urban areas, lakes, woodland ect. From 1846 to present the coast (at the cliffs in Dunwich, Suffolk) has receded by about 105m (used the measuring tool in ArcMap 10.2.2).
I'm not the best at GIS, but I want to excel in this and have no clue how to go about it. A simple but sort of accurate approach would be preferred.
Thanks!
Your first stumbling block... I bet you those three historical images don't have real world coordinates, don't overlap exactly and everything else that can foul up a good plan.
I would begin here Fundamentals of georeferencing a raster dataset—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop
That will get your images georeferenced against a dataset with known coordinates... then you can proceed with the cool stuff
Have a look at the DSAS tool.