Several local communities in SE Madagascar have tried to introduce local management measures to restrict fishing activities around some reefs to sustainably manage thier local fisheries (read more here https://madagascar.co.uk/projects/sustainable-livelihoods/oratsimba). At the moment we don't have any good reef maps for these areas, or any assessment of the condition of the seabed. While we are planning a project to try to map these using on-the-ground surveys in late 2021, it would be very useful to have a first pass map of these areas based on remote sensing data.
This project will use remote sensing data (i.e sentinel 2 satellite imagery), to generate high resolution toporgaphic and benthic habitat maps for the SE Madagascan region. We will create a regional habitat map spanning all current and prospective locally managed marine areas (LMMAs). These maps will be shared with partners to support discussion with communities and help spatial planning and management measures. They will also assist with planning fieldwork locations.
The practicailities of the project will be looking through available sentinel imagery for cloud and wave free imagery, stitching these together into a continuous dataset for the region. Using processing tools to clean, correct and process satellite data. Gathering available datasets for ground-truthing predictions (point measurements of seabed depth and fauna observations). Using classification algorithms to classify the seabed based on topography derived from the depth map, try to identify coral reef and other seabed habitats using spectral and topographic data.
Once we have these maps you will be comparing these habitats to the management areas and look for spatial patterns. It might also be interesting to look at a time series of images to see if there are any detectable changes since the introduction of LMMAs.
This is an opportunity to learn processing of remote sensing data and seabed habitat classification, while at the same time contributing to a project promoting sustainable management of marine resources.
