Reef survey techniques

[Brian Long]

Hi, 
I am a research scientist for CSIRO fisheries, Australia and am involved in  
a project to do a reef resource inventory of the reefs of Torres Strait,  
northern Australia. I would like to contact others that are doing this kind  
of work. 

We have Landsat TM satellite imagery of the reefs, ArcInfo GIS and Image  
(image processing software). The objects of the project are to map the reef  
habitats and to get information on the distribution and abundance of the  
conspicuous megabenthos. The output of the project will be stored in a GIS  
of the marine resources of Torres Strait. It will serve as a base map for  
future monitoring and for designing cost-effective sampling programs to  
estimate the abundance of selected species. We have already done one field  
trip in February 1995 and go up again in November 1995. Part of our project  
is to develop rapid field assessment techniques for quantifying reef cover  
and the abundance of the conspicuous megabenthos. Last Feb. we sampled over  
700 sites on 26 reefs in eastern Torres Strait. The correlation we got  
between  satellite imagery pixel values (red, green and blue) and percentage  
cover (sand, live coral, algal pavement and rubble) was quite low (approx.  
25% variation explained). Depth was better (66%). If anyone is doing similar  
work I would love to hear how you are going. The maps we are creating from  
the field work and satellite imagery is to serve as habitat base maps for  
Torres Strait Reefs. We start a project in 1996 to estimate the standing  
stock of Beche-de-mer in Torres Strait. The habitat maps and data we are  
collecting from the current project will be used as pilot data to design a  
stratified cost-effective sampling program to estimate Beche-de-mer standing  
stock. If anyone else is doing this kind of work I'd also love to hear about it. 
Brian Long 
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Brian Long,  Marine Ecologist      E-mail:  Brian.Long at qld.ml.csiro.au 
CSIRO, Division of Fisheries       Phone :  +61 7 3286 8288 
PO Box 120, Cleveland, Q 4163      Fax   :  +61 7 3286 2582 
Australia      
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