Affiliation(s)
1. Department of Geoinformatics, College of Graduate Studies, Arabian Gulf University, Manama 22979, Bahrain
2. Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of North Carolina Wilmington-UNCW, Wilmington, North Carolina 28403, USA
3. Department of Natural Resources and Enviro. College of Graduate Studies, Arabian Gulf University, Manama 22979, Bahrain
4. Department of Biology, University of Bahrain, Sakheer 32038, Bahrain
5. Department of Student Affairs, University of Bahrain, Sakheer 32038, Bahrain
6. Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Dammam, Dammam 31441, Saudi Arabia
ABSTRACT
Identification
and classification, as well as mapping of marine habitats, are of primary importance to plan management activities, especially in disturbed ecosystems like the ones in the marine areas of
Bahrain. Remotely sensed Landsat-8 imagery coupled with field survey was used
to identify, classify and map the benthic habitats in Bahrain marine area. The
used geospatial techniques include
advanced image processing procedures, which comprise of radiometric and
atmospheric corrections, sun glint removal, water depth correction and image
classification. Extensive ground-truthing analyses
through in-situ field surveys by a team of scuba
divers were conducted in October 2014 and June 2015 to
inform and refine the classifications. The variables collected from this survey included physical and chemical
characteristics of the water, habitat type, substrata,
fauna and flora. A total of 176 field points were
collected and utilized to perform an accurate assessment of the image
classification. Initial habitat classification resulted in 20 habitat
categories. However, due to the inability of the Landsat-8 sensors to accurately discriminate that level of
classification, categories were merged into seven classes. The derived
map shows that the benthic marine
habitats of Bahrain consist of deep water (2,523
km2), rock (1,738 km2), sand (1,191 km2), deep water/sand (1,006 km2), algae (922 km2),
seagrass (591 km2) and corals
(275.50 km2). Although limited
by the spatial and spectral resolutions of Landsat 8, the used methods produced
a suitable map of the benthic habitats within the marine area of Bahrain with an overall accuracy of 84.1%.
The use of very high spatial resolution satellite imagery will most likely
increase such accuracy significantly.
KEYWORDS
Landsat 8, marine,
water column
correction, scuba diving, GIS (Geographic Information System).
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