Journal
REMOTE SENSING LETTERS
Volume 9, Issue 4, Pages 324-333Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/2150704X.2017.1420927
Keywords
-
Funding
- Australian Research Council [DP0663]
- World Bank Group
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Coral reef scientists and managers require detailed information of reef environments to develop, implement and evaluate management strategies. Maps showing the distribution of corals, seagrass, algae, sand, rubble and rock are an essential component of this information. Using a semi-automated, object-based image analysis (OBIA) approach this study created a benthic community map for Heron Reef (area: approximately 27km(2)), Southern Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Benthic cover information was acquired for calibration and validation via georeferenced photograph transects, which coincided with high spatial resolution Quickbird-2 satellite image capture in 2007. Through combination of these data sets and modification of a semi-automated OBIA classification scheme previously developed for seagrass environments to account for the heterogeneous nature of reef benthic communities, a benthic community map was created for Heron Reef with an overall accuracy of 61.6%. The robustness and repeatability of our method provide future opportunity to apply the semi-automated approach to a time series of field and high spatial resolution image data sets to create a time series of benthic community maps for Heron Reef. The results presented in this study therefore open up the opportunity to assess and understand the spatial and temporal dynamics of the reef environment.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available