[Coral-List] Large-scale rugosity measurements

Ben Richards br at hawaii.edu
Mon Dec 19 12:42:33 EST 2005


I am interested in methods that may be used to measure reef rugosity 
along transects which follow the 50' isobath and are approximately 
1500m in length.  These transects are part of the NOAA PIFC CRED 
methodology (http://www.pifsc.noaa.gov/cred/towboard.php) and are set 
to circumnavigate various islands in Hawaii and the Pacific.  The aim 
is to collect low resolution data on fish, coral and other populations 
in these areas for temporal monitoring and large-scale distributional 
analysis.  Given the length, the standard "chain method" is, shall we 
say, a little impracticable.

There does exist a sizable database of LIDAR data from the main 8 
Hawaiian Islands as well as growing multibeam coverage of the other 
areas.  Papers authored by Dr. Berhnard Riegl 
(http://www.nova.edu/ocean/rieglb/page3.html) at NOVA SE suggest 
algorithms for estimating rugosity using the variance around LIDAR 
signals.  This is a very interesting idea and I would be interested to 
hear of other possible methods for measuring reef rugosity on this 
scale.  My aim is to be able to start correlating distributions of reef 
fish populations to certain physical and biological reef parameters, 
one of which should be rugosity.

Cheers
~ben

<>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <><
Benjamin L. Richards
Graduate Student
Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology
46-007 Lilipuna Rd
Kaneohe, HI 96744

work: (808) 236-7440
cell: (808) 782-1734
fax: (808) 236-7443

email: br at hawaii.edu
AIM: reefben

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