NOAA RESTORE Science Program
Scientists on the ChIRPS team are using remotely sensed imagery from satellites to detect changes in seagrass cover over time. The regular monitoring of seagrass species and changes in the amount of seafloor covered by seagrass is very important for detecting declines in the condition of a meadow. However, this can be difficult on remote islands such as the Chandeleurs.
Dr. Alicia Sendrowski, a remote sensing scientist at The Water Institute, is using machine learning to create a seagrass detection model. Using publicly available satellite imagery, Sendrowski has been able to accurately identify seagrass species and cover of Chandeleur Island’s seagrass going back to the 1980s. Dr. Bingqing Liu, an assistant professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, has shown that spectral analysis of high resolution, commercial data can identify seagrass on a species level. Full story here.