Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

PC02 Optical Studies in Aquatic Ecosystems

Date: Tuesday, February 13, 2001

Location: Southwest Hall

Lesser, M, P, University of New Hampshire, Department of Zoology, Durham, NH, USA, mpl@christa.unh.edu

Maffione, R, , HOBI Labs, Inc., Moss Landing, CA, USA, maffione@hobilabs.com

HYPERSPECTRAL REMOTE SENSING OF BAHAMAIAN REEFS

Hyperspectral remote sensing is emerging as a promising means of mapping shallow reef habitats and characterizing them based on the major functional groups of coral reef organisms. Measurements of benthic spectral reflectances and remote sensing reflectance were made on a coral reef near Lee Stocking Island, Bahamas. The spectral irradiance reflectances of the dominant substrates and flora and fauna of the study area (e.g., sand, live corals, macrophytes, turf algae) were categorized with a fourth derivative analysis. Just below the water’s surface, the upwelling spectral radiance was measured simultaneously with the downwelling irradiance just above the surface. A comparison of remote sensing reflectance measurements, made either directly or modeled, shows fairly good agreement. We are now analyzing the remote sensing reflectance data to obtain the important spectral features related to the major benthic habitat groups listed above using principal components, discriminant function, and fuzzy logic analyses. Using these techniques we will then analyze our airborne hyperspectral imagery to provide bottom classifications of reef habitats that can than be compared to our ground truthing efforts.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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