Shallow water seagrass observed by high resolution full waveform bathymetric LiDAR

Full waveform bathymetric LiDAR allows a detailed examination of laser backscatter from the water surface, water column and benthic layer. The presence of seagrass on the ben-thic layer would also be expected to influence the backscat-tered radiation encapsulated in the full waveform observations. The combination of conventional geometric features, radiometric features and derived geometric features from the waveform analysis may make it possible to identify the presence of seagrass or even classify the different types of sea-grass. An analysis of the correlation of seagrass location with different full waveform LiDAR parameters is presented. Overall, it is found that a high degree of correlation exists between the presence of seagrass and LiDAR intensity, benthic elevation and benthic return pulse width. Surface roughness, curvature and vertical uncertainty are found to have weak correlation with the presence of seagrass.