Applications of remote sensing techniques for mapping posidonia oceanica meadows

Posidonia Oceanica is a marine phanerogam characterizing an ultimate succession stage (climax) on sandy bottoms in the Mediterranean Sea. In particular, Posidonia Oceanica ecosystems are an important element in improving the water quality of coastal waters [1], [2]. Producing thematic maps of seagrass communities from remote sensing data is a multistep process. First, a preprocessing phase to correct satellite images. The second step is the classification phase. Subsequently the postclassification phase have to improve the accuracy of the results. In this study, Posidonia Oceanica meadows maps of Taranto Gulf, Ionian Sea, in 2001, 2002, and 2004, are produced from Ikonos, ETM+ and ASTER images. A comparison with ground truth measurements in the Ionian Sea shows the advantages and the limits of each approach. © 2008 IEEE.