Optimizing Remotely Sensed Solutions for Monitoring, Modeling, and Managing Coastal Environments

When faced with developing, testing, and delivering a remote sensing system or product that is “optimal” for a specific coastal environment and monitoring or modeling problem, an objective and replicable framework to guide these operations is essential. A framework has been developed for coastal environments, combining concepts from remote sensing and landscape ecology to provide remotely sensed data users with an objective basis for selecting “optimal” data sets and processing techniques. The framework was applied to case studies in: coastal wetlands of southern California; coastal wet-dry tropical wetlands in Northern Territory, Australia; and a rapidly urbanizing coastal catchment in southeast Queensland, Australia. Results established for each case study demonstrated that the framework functioned effectively in different coastal environments and provided more accurate results than ad hoc solutions.