Airborne Remote Sensing of Intertidal Biotopes: BIOTA I

Airborne remote sensing with CASI (Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager) was used to map sediment types and biotic associations for the intertidal zone from the Humber Estuary to North Norfolk within the LOIS BIOTA (Biological Influences On inter-Tidal Areas) programme. This will allow field-based biotic and sedimentary information to be extrapolated to provide data for modelling the coastal processes of erosion and accretion. A Research and Development Phase based on selected sample areas has produced results on scale, timing and classification methods which have allowed procedures to be specified for extensive mapping in the Applications Phase. Unsupervised methods of image classification have been shown to be effective for mapping extensive areas. Vegetation indices derived from radiometric data provide quantitative information on the amount of vegetation cover.