Remote sensing of coral bleaching

[Serge Andrefouet]

(apologies for cross-posting)

Dear all,

To help in preparing a workshop dealing with coral bleaching and remote
sensing I would be interested in hearing about any succesfull or
disappointing application of remote sensing for detecting and monitoring
coral bleaching, during the bleaching. I precise that the primary interest
is in "direct" remote sensing of reefs themselves using airborne or
satellite instruments. Though extremely interesting, "indirect" remote
sensing of oceanic (e.g. Sea Surface Temperature) and atmospheric (e.g.
cloud cover) conditions at regional-scale, and organism-scale spectral
signatures of bleached or dead corals are not the primary focus of the
review I have to present.

So far, I am aware of 4 reports on this subject. They are listed below and
present results for Belize, Japan, French Polynesia, and GBR reefs. If you
have conducted a simulation or a real survey using airborne or satellite
data (aerial photographs, hyperspectral, Ikonos, SPOT, Landsat...) I would
be interested and grateful to hear about it. Original information will be
credited and ackowledged of course.

Thanks in advance,

Best regards,

Serge Andrefouet

Yamano, H. & Tamura, M. (in press). Can satellite sensors detect coral reef
bleaching? A feasibility study using radiative transfer models in air and
water. In Proc. 9th Int. Coral reef Symposium, ISRS, Bali, Indonesia.

Yamano, H. & Tamura, M. (2001). Use of Landsat TM data and radiative
transfer models for monitoring coral reef bleaching. In Proc. IGARSS 2001,
vol. CDROM. IEEE, Sydney, Australia.

Ammenberg, P., Lindell, L. T. & Kramer, P. (in press). Detection of coral
bleaching using high spatial resolution satellite images. In Proc. 9th Int.
Coral reef Symposium, ISRS, Bali, Indonesia.

Andréfouët S., R. Berkelmans, L. Odriozola, T. J. Done, J. K. Oliver, F. E.
Muller-Karger. (in press) Choosing the appropriate spatial resolution for
monitoring coral bleaching events using remote sensing. Coral Reefs.
Serge Andrefouet
College of Marine Science
Institute for Marine Remote sensing
University of South Florida
140, 7th Av. South
St Petersburg
FL 33701

Tel: 727 -553-3987/ 727 -553-1186
Fax: 727 -553-1103

E-mail: serge at carbon.marine.usf.edu