Benefits of water column correction and contextual editing for mapping coral reefs

ABSTRACT

Classification accuracy of coral reefs can be significantly improved by compensation for light attenuation in the water column and contextual editing to account for generic patterns of reef distribution.

Both processes are easily implemented and collectively constitute an accruement in accuracy of 22% for airborne multispectral imagery (Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager - CASI) and up to 17% for satellite imagery (Landsat TM, SPOT XS, SPOT Pan, Landsat MSS) for each extra days effort using the technique (up to maximum accuracies of 89% and 73% respectively).