An examination of spatial autocorrelation as a means of monitoring coral reef ecosystems

Rather than attempt to remotely identify specific benthic habitats with similar optical properties, a more appropriate use of available satellite technology may be to examine benthic homogeneity of a coral reef ecosystem with the hypothesis that a healthy reef will display great heterogeneity, but a dead algae-covered reef will be relatively homogeneous. Such an approach to ecosystem analysis could prove to be efficient with respect to time, human resources, and data storage, and would produce results that could be directly applied to a realistic management scheme with "minimal regrets". A measure of spatial autocorrelation, the Getis statistic, used in a case study of SPOT imagery, shows potential in evaluating the well being of a coral reef ecosystem