Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) is a signal decomposition technique particularly suitable for non-stationary and non-linear signals. In this paper, two target detection methods with improved accuracy in side scan sonar images are proposed. In the first method, target detection is based on morphological operations; the second method combines Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) with morphological operations. Both methods are enhanced with edge detection filtering. Experimental results indicate that the proposed methods are very effective, but their efficiency depends on the input image. Hence, they should be used in combination.