Veettil et al. 2020. Opportunities for Seagrass Research Derived from Remote Sensing: A Review of Current Methods

Veettil, Bijeesh Kozhikkodan, Raymond D. Ward, Mariana Do Amaral Camara Lima, Milica Stankovic, Pham Ngoc Hoai, and Ngo Xuan Quang. “Opportunities for Seagrass Research Derived from Remote Sensing: A Review of Current Methods.” Ecological Indicators 117 (n.d.): 106560. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106560

Abstract
Seagrass communities provide critical ecosystem and provisioning services for both human populations and awide range of associated species globally. However, it has been reported that seagrass area is decreasing at arapid rate in many parts of the world, mostly due to anthropogenic activities including global change (pollutionand climate change). The aim of this review article is to highlight the range of current tools for studying sea-grasses as well as identify the benefits and limitations of a range of remote sensing and traditional methodologies. This paper provides a discussion of the ecological importance of seagrass meadows, and recent trends anddevelopments in seagrass research methods are discussed including the use of satellite images and aerial pho-tographs for seagrass monitoring and various image processing steps that are frequently utilised for seagrassmapping. The extensive use of various optical, Radar and LiDAR data for seagrass research in recent years hasalso been described in detail. The review concludes that the recent explosion of new methods and tools availablefrom a wide range of platforms combined with the recent recognition of the importance of seagrasses providesthe research community with an excellent opportunity to undertake a range of timely research. This researchshould include mapping the extent and distribution of seagrasses, identifying the drivers of change and factorsthat confer resilience, as well as quantification of the ecosystem services provided. Whilst remotely sensed dataprovides an important new tool it should be used in conjunction with traditional methods for validation and witha knowledge of the limitations of results and careful interpretation.

Appendix 1 : Summary of studies using underwater photography/videography for seagrass studies around the world since the 2000s
Appendix 2 : Summary of studies using airborne hyperspectral data for seagrass studies around the world since the 2000
Appendix 3 : Non-exhaustive list of latest studies using spaceborne multispectral and hyperspectral data for worldwide seagrass studies (since 2010)
Appendix 4 : A summary of recent seagrass studies using data taken from UAVs