Proceedings of the Fifth International Coral Reef Congress, Tahiti, 1985, Vol.

LANDSAT AS A MANAGEMENT TOOL FOR MAPPING SHALLOW

WATER HABITATS IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA
L'IMAGERIE LANDSAT EN TANT QU'INSTRUMENT DE CARTOGRAPHIE
EN EAU PEU PROFONDE EN PAPOUASIE-NOUVELLE.GUINEE

rl.J. QUrril
Flsheries Department, Papua New Guinea University of Technology, Lae,
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
P. DtrLZf,LL
Fj.sherles Research, Department of Primary Industry, Kavieng,
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
B.L. KOJIS
L.I.H.S., Lae, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

ABSITACT

Surveys of coastal conlrtunities are lmportant in order to establish an inventory of the

nationel resources. The use of an earth reaources satell-lte system (LANDSAT) is demonbtrated to
contain the spectral and spatial. resolution suitable for mapplng shallow water cofimunitles in troplcal
Papua New Guinea.
A Landsat multi-spectral image of the Kavieng region of New Ireland island in tt," Bismark
Archipelago lras used to map shalloo water assernblages. As [Dst of the Paclfic is without narlti-spectral
scanner images, we reconmend that a receiving station be established.

REST'IIE

Les dtudes des communaut6s littorales jouent un grand 16le dans 1 | 6tabllsselnent drun
lnventaire des ressources nationales. Pour ce faire, il a it6 mont16 que lrutilisation dtun systlne de
satellites (LANDSAT) pennettait de cartographier 1es communautds troplcales de Papouasd-e-Nouve1le
Guin6e, en eeu peu profonde. Une lmage LANDSAT plurispectrale de la rdgion de Kavieng (Nouvelle
Irl,ande), dans I'archlpel Biemark, a ainsi servi i y cartographier des zonee peu profondes. Conme une
rnajorit6 du Pacifique nrest pas couvert per ltirnagerie acanner plurispectrale, nous reccr.rrnandons 1a
mise en place de postea r6cepteurs.

INTRODUCTION
Papua Nect Grinea (ptlC) is a newly independent
nation (1975) with a total land area of 46I,694
sq km. IP consists of the eastern half of the
island of New Grinea and a myriad of srnaller
islands and has a coastline of over 7,000 km'
Ihe ocean within the Exclusive Fconomic Zone
(EEZ) of apua New G:inea, which the governrent
m.rst contrpl and regulate, forne a vast area over
seven tifies the land ntass-
To date large areas of PNG's seas are poorly
charted (Ygung, 1982; Done, 1983) and nrany coral
reefs are only just being acknowledged in the
sc ientific literature (t<o3is and Quinn, 1984;
1985 ). fiie ocean anea with Papua New Grinears
EEZ is cor/ered with charts varying from scales of
1:1,700,000 to 1:12,500, the latter for harbours
and ch s approaches. For general navigation
L:300,000 charts are adequate while 1:100,000
charts are rlDre suitable for coastal naviagation.
Table 1 lists the chatt coverage within Papua New
G:inea's dBZ and the Portion of surveyed area on
charts of particular scale. Many of the surveyed
inforrnatio]n. Of the 2,339,900 k only
is survey . lfuch of this area needs to be
resurvey or the existing data verified (Young,
1981 ). use of LANDSAT data to create a
"HyREGMpIiIC" (Hydrographic phic Reconnaissance
Graphic, I]:100,000 rrBP) to up u date hydrograPhic
and bathy#tric detail in Papua New G:inea has
been sugge]sted by Young (1983a; 1983b).
Fundar/.ental to the adninistration of the EEZ
is a knovfledge of the resources located within
its bounda]ry, both in type and distribution.
Shallow seas and nunerous reefs have always
proved halardous for raritine activities and
discouragld exploration.
Where developing countries rust increasingly
rely upon developnent of their own resources to
achieve financial independence, it is importaflt
that every] opportunity be taken to facilitate
explor ati Efficient exploration and
developrcnlt of resources will assist developing
countries to achieve prominence in a corpetitive
internatioJoal narketplace.
Papua New Guinea has large areas of shallow
water habitats requiring inltial identification
or update nepping. As conventional charting
nethods are slow, hazardous and expensive,
alternatir/e low cost rapid re[Dte sensing nethods
Table Hydrologlcal Chart Coverage of Papua
Scale
I: 12 ,500 1:
I: 100,000 1 150,000
1: 250,000 1:
l: l, 700,000 1:1,000,000
1:I,700,000 and smaller
rnay be employed to provide interim informtion
until surveys by conventional IIEans can be
conducted. For exanple, Quinn (1984) used
LANDSAT to npnitor the noxious vreed Salvinia
noLesta on the Sepik River, Papua New cuiiEl---T
taE[]E6-at would have nornrally been done only at
great expense and been plagued with logistic
problems.
Additionally, strict environnEntal laws in
Papua New Grinea require the nDnitoring and
evaluation of developnent projects- LANDSAT
inngery has already proved useful to help nonitor
silt deposition associated with a proposed port
developnent (Quinn and Kojis, )-982; 1984).
The use of LANDSAT to nrap the shaLlow water
habitats such as the Great Barrier Reef was
proposed by Smith et al., (7975a; b) and applied
by Bina et a1. (1978) and Jnpp et al. (1981;
1983 ). The Ministry of Prirnary Industries in
Fiji is considering using LANDSAT to define
habitats for giant clam recolonization (Adans,
pers. cornm. ).
The purpose of this study is to assess
LANDSAT rn:lti-spectral data for unpping shallow
water habitats such as nrangrove lined estuaries,
coral reef habitats and sea grass beds in Papua
New G:inea and to evaluate its potential for use
in other developing countries in the South
Pacific region.
METHODS
The LANDSAT System
LANDSAT is a satellite designed to establish
the value of relatively coarse resolution, large
area, reflective rrulti-spectral inngery from an
altitude of approxinrately 918 km. Sunlight
reflected from the earth is separated into four
spectral bands' Ihese bands record light of the
following wavelengths: band 4, 0'5 - 0'6 pm
(green); band 5, 0.6 - 0.7 pm (red); band 6,
0. 7 - 0.8prn (near infrared ); band 7 0.8 - 1.1 prn
(infrared). Their contribution to' the image is
similar to additive color photography, but their
separate recording adds a dinension to the
interpretation difficult to achieve with
photography. Further details of the LANDSAT
system are available in Thonras (1975).
Ihe attenuation of light by water is also a
strong function of wavelength (Mcore, 1980) and
the irnplication for LANDSAT rerDte sensing can be
sumrnarized as follows: Band 4 has the naxirnrm
r^rater penetration (15 m) and is nost affected by
New Grinea's EEZ
(af ter Young, 1981 )
% Coverage % of area
of. EEZ covered
surveyed
75,000 I 83
4 bv
300,000 25 76
80 79
100 N.A.
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atrDspheric scattering. Band 5 is FDre rapidly
attenuated by water and nost of it is lost in the
upper 5 n. Band 6 contains a part of the red
(visible) portion of the spectrum, but a majority
of its response is in the near infra-red. In
clear, deep water nDst near infra-red is absorbed
within 20 cm of the surface. Band 7 penetrates
only the upper millineters of water, but is
useful in plotting heavily silted r,rater. In nost
situations band 7 is best used to disctiminate
Land from water ntasses. These signals are, of
course, affected by the state of the sea and the
atrosphere. It is recognized that LANDSAT can
delineate, but not distinguish between the
patterns of bathynetry (e.g., Blna et al., 1978)
and turbidity (e.g., Jetlov, 1976; ltunday and
Alfoldi , 1979).
Mapping spatial patterns and signature
variations in deep water has been investigated in
Australia (Thom,son and Carpenter, 1981). ArDs
and Alfoldi (L979) and ltunday and Alfoldi (1979)
have conpared variations in the LANDSAT signature
with actual physical nEasurerents of sedinent
load in the r,rater colurm. Wolanski et aL .
(1984) investlgated river plunns and mixing on
the !'raters of the ftlf of Papua and Northern
Great Barrier Reef using LANDSAT irnagery.
The selective absorption of light by water,
nolecular scattering and incident radiation all
play a roLe in sea color. The color of turbid
water results from the selective absorption by
substances carried in the nater (Jerlov, 1976).
In areas where no co[ponent of the signal is
confused by sea bottom reflectance, properties of
seawater rny be studied using LANDSAT data.
The use of LANDSAT on the Great Barrier Reef
shelf has shown that vrhen the water is less than
5 m deep, or turbid with concentrations higher
than 5 ppm of fine particles, bands 4 and 5 have
significant signal leve1s above background noise
(Jupp et al., 1983). In regions of deeper water
and/or less turbidity only snra11 variations in
band 4 exist nraking it dtfficult to delineate
depth and water rnsses and thus requiring
repeated innges.
Processlng Techniques
Computer aided analysis of LANDSAT data uses
an interactive programrE cal1ed LANSAT runnlng on
a PDP II 134 computer at the Papua New Guinea
University of Technology. The progran was
written in f'ortren by Dr. Frank Honey to accept
data from the Australian LANDSAT Station (ALS).
The fornrat of the ALS LANDSAT tapes ls band
interleaved by line (BIL),
The data from the LANDSAT tapes is
transferred to an RK-05 disc, where allocated
space allows sub-scenes of 5IZ lines by 5I2
pixels to be accomnodated. A BASIC program
called LSSTOR is used to copy the data frorn the
tapes to the disc from where the infornration is
read off for LANSAT. Each LANDSAT image was
enhenced using an algorlthm devised by obtaining
spectral signatures frorn several areas with
suspected siniler physical and biological
features.
To display the LANDSAT data an Electohone
color display terninal, a Matrox colour display
interface was used. Up to 256 lines by 256
pixels may be displayed ln I0 colors.
A LANDSAT nultl-spectral illlage frorn a
computer corpatible tape imaged by Landsat 3 on
l0 August 1981 (path 101, row 62) was used to
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chart shallow water comnunities around Kavleng
Harbour (2034's., 150047,E.). A record of each
image was nrade using a 200 mm lens on a 35 mm
cartera and photographing the cathode ray screen.
Shutter speeds of < 1/15 sec. $/ere used to
ellminate a band effect associated with the
cathode ray tube projection.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The Image
Using 10 color bands the habitats around
Kavieng are displayed in Figure I {nd codes
listed in Table 2. As this scene is just on the
horizon of the Australian Landsat receiving
station, there is a lot of noise associated with
this inage that is uncharacteristic of rrDst
inngery. Owing to the relatively unsophisticated
data processing facilities available, we are
unable to rrsnDoth'r the innge. Many of the single
colored pixels sorE distance away from others of
the sane color r.rould otherwise be eliminated as
they are noise artifacts and not the results of
true sensing.
Raw i,ANDSAT inragery of shallow water habltats
such as coral reefs nny be difficult to interpret
visually. A dark patch may be interpreted as a
deep lagoon or sea grass bed or nud flat and a
very bright area could be a shallow lagoon with
white sand botton or coral rubble. Wakes around
islands can be delinated (Wol-anski et a1., 1984)
any may be confused r+ith turbid or shallow water.
It is therefore necessary that classifications be
conducted with the aid of soneone knowledgeable
about the area and post processing surveys be
conducted to sarple locations to verify
classifications at least in the initial stages.
The relative area and surface configuration
of each color zone depends on the tidal level
during inagery acquisition. A temporal
comparlson of the band zones of the sarr shallow
v/ater habitat should indicate wtrich areas are
subject to the greatest spectral changes during
tidal npvenent.
Sources of Error
There are two najor sources of error ln
nrapping shallow water habitats uslng digital
classification techniques. The first is in
correctly classifying a plxel aa a particular
habitat, e.g., coral, and the second is in the
accuracy of rrepping shallow water habitats where
errors will occur from both classlficetion errors
and mlxed pixels on the field boundary.
The accuracy of classifying the habltats
depends upon a number of factors: 1) The abltity
to discriminate the habitats from other habitate
on the dates of acquisition. Submrged reefs
look like rd.ldly turbld water and shallow reefe
like rore turbid water. 2) The training data
used to establish class paranEtere for the
classifier m.rst be representatlve of that class.
The best way of ensuring thls ls to statistically
sanple enough identical habitats. 3) Setting of
the class decision values. If the decision
bounds are eet too tightly then reny pixels that
represent the c1ass, but having slightly
different responee values will not be included
and becom errors of onlssion. If the bounds are
set too wide then there will be signiflcant
errors of commission.
 Errord in estirnating the areas of the
habitats are due to misclassification of
individuall pixels as well as: 4) Errors in the
norninal piLxal size. The inage was not rectified
to ground control hence minor variations in the
altitude df the satellite would result in a
deviation from the 79 m X 58 m standard. 5)
Mixed picture elerEnts on field boundaries. If
the percentage of the area of the habitats in the
mixed bouridary pixels was a uniform distribution
and the Jlass decision values were properly set,
then there would be negligible errors from this
source. However, as the habitats beconre snallet
the distr{bution of the percentage of each
habitat in the mixed picture elements can be
expected {o diverge from a uniform distribution
wlth an {ttendent higher probability that errors
will occui.
Li ml tatioris
T can be used to provide reconnaissance
nBpping abling effective planning and
ranageIlen of shalLow water habitats. Satellite
rerDte se sing does not replace the rlDre
conventio al nethods of shallow water nrapping,
but can r e the tine and costs associated with
them by s pplying supplenentary data, or data for
continuou assessrent. This particularly applies
to reIll]te, sparsely populated areas l^thich have
fer,r trained technicians like Papua New Guinea.
Additionally, where data is required periodically
over sofle considerabLe tine the costs of
conventional nethods would be prohibitive.
The lirnitation to the application of LANDSAT
data exists where there is inappropriate data
handling technology and expertise. In the case
of LANDSAT there is no requirenent for adaption
of satellite technology to 1oca1 conditions as
there is no involvenent with the sensing
equipnent or its operations. Involvenent is
confined to the data produced from the satellite
sensing and this can be acquired in a useable
state in readiness fot interpretation or
nnnipulation. The two nain labor intensive
activities are in the rnanipulation and
interpretation of the masses of data and in the
production of naps charts or statistical data
presentations.
Finally, the rDst imnediate limitation to
potential users in the South Pacific region is
that there is no local receiving station in the
region. Hence, signals for less than 1/4 of the
waters in Papua New Guinears EEZ are currently
being received and there is no current data from
LANDSAT being received over any other area of the
South Pacific.

Table 2: Interpretation of Figure 1

Black and itrhite photograph of color
LANDSAT innge.

Code t{ab itat Depth

1 Deep water <f5 m

2 Deep shoal 8 -15n
3 Deep coral 3.5 - 5 m
4 Deep coral and sand 3.5 - 5 m
5 Mediurn depth coral
and sand 0.5 - 3.5 m
6 Sand 0 - 0.5 m
Shallow sand and
coral 0 - 0.5 m
Sea grass beds 0.5 - 3.5 m

t 9 Mangrove vegetation
10 Land or clouds

,Sr ll
l*r{. f

Figure : LANDSAT conposite irrage of the Kavieng region, New

Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea.

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CONCLUSION
Developing countries do not generally have a
satisfactory enough inventory of their shallow
water habitats to develop and renage them
effectively. General rnapping activities,
especially within the newly established EEZ, will
rernain in an unsatisfactory situation for these
countries unless priorities alter, special
overseas assistance is sought or new alternative
technologies are employed.
We believe that satellite based rercte
sensing equiprFnt such as LANDSAT mrlti-spectral
scanners can make a significant contribution to
low cost, synoptic, shallow water resource
assessnent prograns in developing countries with
large exclusive economic zones.
The nore sophisticated technology found in
the thenratic nepper in LANDSAT with its narrower
band widths and srnaller spatial resolution (30 m)
will further increase the appropriateness of
satellite based renr:te sensing technology for use
the napping the shallow water resources of the
developing countries of the Pacific.
The anticipated launch of SPOT by the Centre
National d'Etudes Spatiales, France, in November
1985 will provide an increase in spatial and
temporal resolution over LANDSAT imgery and
should be evaluated for use in the South Pacific.
RECOMMENDATION
Proceedings 12th International Syr|posium on
Renpte Sensing of Environnent, ERIM, Ann
Arbor, Michigan, vol.3, pp. 2051-20f9.
DONE,P. 1983. The preseflt status of hydrography
in Papua New Guinea. Internatio4al Hydro-
graphic Review, Monaco 60:7-18.
JERLOV,N.G. 1976. l4arine Optics. Elseyier, Anr
sterdam, p.326.
JUPP, D. L. K. K. MAYo, D.Kj KUCHLER,
B. ,
S.W. and S.W. KENDALL. 19E1. Renote
HEGGEN
sensing by LANDSAT as support for qanageuent
of the Great Barrier Reef. Proc$edings of
2nd Australian Renote Sensing Conference,
Canberra, P. Laut (ed.),9.5.1-9.5,1 6.
JUPP,D.L.B., K.K. MAYO, S. KENDALL and S-
HEGGEN. 1983. The use of LANDSAT data to
assess bathynetry and topographic structure
in the Great Barrier Reef region. CSIRO
Division of Water and Land Resources.
Technical Menorandum, P.60.
KOJIS, B.L. and N.J. QUINN. 1984. Seasonal and
depth variation in fecundity of Acropora
palifera at two reefs in Papua New Guinea.
Coral Reefs 3:765-172.
KOJIS, B.L. and N.J. QUINN. 1985- Coral Reefs of
Northeast New Guinea. 5th InternatiQnal Coral
Reef Syrnposium, Tahiti.

We recomrnend: I ) that two SPOT innge G.K. 1980. Satellite renDte sensing of
MOORE,
receiving stations be established in the South water turbidity. Hydrological Sciences,
Pacific, 2) that these stations be placed in the Bu11. Sci. Hydrolog.ffi
region of Tahiti and New Caledonia, and 3) that
SPOT products be freely available at reasonable MUNDAY,J.C. and ALFOLDI, T.T. 1979. LANDSAT test
rates to all nations of the South Pacific. of diffuse reflectance nodels for aquatic
Considering France's use of its Pacific suspended solids nsasurerrent. RerrDte Sens.
coloniaL territories as an experinental ground Environnent 8 : 169-183.
for its nucLear program and the concern this
aroused with respect to nuclear contamination in QUINN, N.J. 1984. Evaluation of LANDSAT as a
the South Pacific, we feel it appropriate that neans of nonitoring Salvinia noleqta on the
the establishnent costs for the receiving Sepik River, Papua New Guinea. Fisheries
stations be borne entirely by the French Departfent Research Report Series, No. 6,
governrent. Papua New Guinea University of Technology,
p.13.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS QUINN,N.J. and B.L. KOJIS. 1982. The hydrology
of the Markham River intrusion i.nto the Huon
We would like to acknowledge the use of the GuLf using LANDSAT irnagery and in situ obser-
LANDSAT facilities of the Departrent of Survey vations. Science in New cuinea-915)-i115-129.
and Land Studies and the corputer facilities of
the Papua Ner,r Guinea Univetsity of Technology. QUINN,N.J. and B.L. KOJIS. 1984. Renpte sensing
Ifu. B. Nichols is particularly acknowledged for of the Markharn River intrusion into the Huon
his assistance in naintaining the corrPuting Gulf, Papua New Guinea. Proceedings of the
in fr as truc tur e. 3rd Australasian Re[Dte Sensing Conference,
The Departnrent of Prinrary Industry, Fisheries Queensland, 1984, pp. 740-744.
Research is gratefully acknowledged for their
financial support. SMITH,V.E., R.H. ROGERS and L.E. REED. 1975a.
Autornated rapping and inventory of the GYeat
Barrier Reef zonation with LANDSAT data'
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