BATHYMETRY MAPPING USING VERY HIGH RESOLUTION SATELLITE MULTISPECTRAL IMAGERY IN SHALLOW COASTAL WATERS OF PROTECTED ECOSYSTEMS

Remote sensing of coastal areas requires multispectral satellite images with high spatial resolution. In this sense, WorldView-2 is a very high resolution satellite, which provides an advanced multispectral sensor with eight narrow bands, allowing the proliferation of new environmental monitoring and mapping applications in shallow coastal ecosystems. The problem of estimating water depths using a radiative model has yielded good results as it considers the physical phenomena of water absorption-backscattering and the relationship between the albedo of the seafloor and the reflectivity of the shallow waters. The sophisticated model developed and evaluated in this study expands the ratio algorithm model allowing for the increased amount of information provided in WorldView-2 imagery to be included in the retrieval of water depth of shallow coastal waters.