Estimation of the Aerial Cover of Seagrasses of Lakshadweep Islands (India) Using Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS P6 LISS IV)

Abstract

Seagrasses ecosystems are fragile yet highly productive ecosystems of the world showing declining trend throughout the world due to natural and anthropogenic pressures. Effective conservation and management plan is thus required to protect these resources, to aid with conservation need mapping and monitoring of seagrasses using high resolution remote sensing data is very much required. Hence, the present study was made to record the seagrass aerial cover in the Lakshadweep islands using IRS P6 LISS IV satellite data. The suitability of LISS IV sensor for seagrass mapping was tested for the first time with an overall accuracy of 73.16%. The study found an area of 2590.2 ha of seagrasses in Lakshadweep islands with 1310.8 ha and 1279.4 ha dense and sparse seagrass cover respectively. The study recommends the use of LISS IV data for mapping the shallow water seagrasses, as mapping efficiency increases nearly 4 times more than the LISS III data, as the former (LISS IV) picks up the small patches of seagrasses and delineates the coral and reef vegetation patches from seagrass class.