QUANTIFYING SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF WIND TIDAL FLAT CYANOBACTERIAL MATS USING COLOR AND COLOR INFRARED PHOTOGRAPHY

摘要

Studies were conducted on South Padre Island, Texas to evaluate the relationship between chlorophyll concentration and spectral reflectance of cyanobacterial mats, and to determine if mats in various stages of development were distinguishable in conventional color (RGB) and color infrared (CIR) imagery. Chlorophyll concentration varied significantly among mat of different development (dark dense > dark fluffy > brown dense > marginal) while reflectance of visible wavelengths decreased as chlorophyll concentration increased (marginal > brown dense > dark fluffy > dark dense). Because of a similarity of near-infrared (NIR) reflectance among three of the mat types (dark fluffy, brown dense and marginal), the latter were not distinguishable in an image classification based on CIR imagery. In contrast, all of the mat types were spectrally distinct in one or more of the visible wavebands, and were readily distinguishable in an image classification based on conventional RGB imagery.