Recovery of coral reef rugosity from stereo image pairs

Summary form only given. Small (cm-m) scale topography of the seabed is important for a number of applications. For example, ecologists are concerned with roughness on this scale (rugosity) because it is an important characteristic of habitat complexity that can be correlated to species diversity, fish abundance, and past disturbance events such as hurricanes. Systematic measurements of rugosity through time can be used to determine changes in habitat due to accretion and erosion of the substrate.