SEAGRASSES FROM THE SPACE :SEAGRASS BEDS MAPPING AT KHUNG KRABEN BAY, THAILAND

摘要

Due to the significant roles of seagrass ecosystem and the lacking of accurate and geographicrncoordinated seagrass maps in Thailand, therefore, the suitability of Landsat 7 ETM+ data forrnseagrass beds mapping was evaluated in this study. The study area was Khung Kraben Bay,rnlocated at eastern coast of the Gulf of Thailand. Supervised classification base on maximumrnlikelihood classifier was utilised for the seagrass beds classification. The accuracy of thernclassification was assessed by using the ground truth data and relevant documents. The resultsrnshowed that the Landsat 7 ETM+ imagery had a potentiality to classify seagrass habitat with thernaccuracy of about 66.15%. However, seagrass beds at the south of the study area were unable tornrecognise. It was probably due to the effect of the turbidity of seawater. Nevertheless, thernseagrass beds map from the classification could be use for support management planning,rnchanging detection of seagrass habitat over time.