Creating Landscape-Scale Maps of Coral Reef Cover for Marine Reserve Management from High-Resolution Multispectral Remote Sensing

New methods are needed for the study of coral reefs, as they are changing rapidly. Satellite remote sensing has become a common method for benthic mapping with advances in satellites and sensors and as methods are devised to account for atmospheric and water-column effects. Images from the QuickBird satellite have proven useful in reef mapping. Sand was distinguished from coral with an overall accuracy of 75% on the shallow reef off of the Caribbean island of Bonaire. Coral and sand had user accuracies of 50% and 90%, respectively. Increased samples of field-collected data would further increase the accuracies of such classifications.