Progress of the study on coral reef remote sensing

Abstract

Coral reefs are considered a marine ecosystem containing the highest level of biodiversity and primary productivity and are important to the healthy and sustainable development of future human society and marine ecological environment. Coral reefs are the main national land types in the South China Sea, and the state has paid increasing attention to planning, managing, constructing, and protecting coral reefs. All these activities are based on the investigation and measurement of coral reefs. Considering that remote sensing is an effective technique, which has potentials for monitoring the coral reefs in a large scale, remote sensing for the investigation and detection of coral reefs has been conducted by many authors in the past. On this basis, we review the progress of the study on and application of coral reef remote sensing at home and abroad for passive and active remote sensing. Passive remote sensing of coral reefs involves the remote sensing of bottom topography and water depth, substrate classifications and geomorphic units, change detection and stability assessment, and environmental factors. Active remote sensing involves airborne laser bathymetry, shipborne acoustics detection, and microwave remote sensing. The development trends of coral reef landform remote sensing are discussed, and the opportunities and challenges for the remote sensing of national coral reefs are presented. The overall level of our coral reef remote sensing is lagging behind other countries. Some coral reef remote sensing technologies are more advanced at home than abroad, but the depth and breadth of basic applications remain lagging behind those of overseas. Thus, to make coral reef remote sensing suitable in real engineering, our remote sensing experts have been suggested to collaborate with coral reef scholars to strengthen the specific studies on hardware devices, data processing technologies, and basic engineering applications.