Multispectral change vector analysis for monitoring coastal marine environments

Documenting temporal changes to coastal zones is an essential part of understanding and managing these environments. The exclusive use of traditional surveying tools may not be practical for monitoring large, remote, or rapidly changing areas. This paper investigates the utility of multispectral Landsat Thematic Mapper satellite data for documenting changes to a Caribbean coastal zone using the change vector analysis processing technique. The area of study was the coastal region near the village of Buen Hombre on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The primary habitats of interest were the intertidal mangrove forests, and the shallow water seagrasses, macroalgae and coral reefs. The change vector analysis technique uses any number of spectral bands from multidate satellite data to produce change images that yield information about both the magnitude and direction of pixel radiance differences. The final products were created by appending color-coded change pixels onto a black and white base map. The advantages and limitations of the technique for coastal inventories are discussed.