Remote sensing of coral reefs for monitoring and management: a review

Hedley, John D., Roelfsema, Chris M., Chollett, Iliana, Harbone, Alastair R., Heron, Scott F., Weeks, Scarla, Skirving, William J., Strong, Alan E., Eakin, C. Mark, Christensen, Tyler R.L., Ticzon, Victor, Bejarano, Sonia, and Mumby, Peter J. (2016) Remote sensing of coral reefs for monitoring and management: a review. Remote Sensing, 8 (2). 118. pp. 1-40.

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Abstract

Coral reefs are in decline worldwide and monitoring activities are important for assessing the impact of disturbance on reefs and tracking subsequent recovery or decline. Monitoring by field surveys provides accurate data but at highly localised scales and so is not cost-effective for reef scale monitoring at frequent time points. Remote sensing from satellites is an alternative and complementary approach. While remote sensing cannot provide the level of detail and accuracy at a single point than a field survey, the statistical power for inferring large scale patterns benefits in having complete areal coverage. This review considers the state of the art of coral reef remote sensing for the diverse range of objectives relevant for management, ranging from the composition of the reef: physical extent, benthic cover, bathymetry, rugosity; to environmental parameters: sea surface temperature, exposure, light, carbonate chemistry. In addition to updating previous reviews, here we also consider the capability to go beyond basic maps of habitats or environmental variables, to discuss concepts highly relevant to stakeholders, policy makers and public communication: such as biodiversity, environmental threat and ecosystem services. A clear conclusion of the review is that advances in both sensor technology and processing algorithms continue to drive forward remote sensing capability for coral reef mapping, particularly with respect to spatial resolution of maps, and synthesis across multiple data products. Both trends can be expected to continue.

Item ID: 42945
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 2072-4292
Keywords: coral reef; management; monitoring; habitat; physical environment; review
Additional Information:

© 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons by Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Funders: Summit Foundation (SF), Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), UK, Australian Research Council (ARC)
Projects and Grants: NERC Fellowship NE/F015704/1, ARC DE120102459
Date Deposited: 01 Aug 2016 04:48
FoR Codes: 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4104 Environmental management > 410402 Environmental assessment and monitoring @ 100%
SEO Codes: 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9605 Ecosystem Assessment and Management > 960507 Ecosystem Assessment and Management of Marine Environments @ 100%
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