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Identification of Coral Patches from Side Scan Sonar Imagery in Labuan
Marine Park
Jeannie Lim
Supervisor: Dr. Khaira Ismail
Bachelor of Science (Marine Science)
School of Marine and Environmental Sciences
Seafloor habitat classification is becoming a major tool in marine scientific research.
Map revealing spatial details of the seafloor, represent an essential tool to formulate
effective ecosystem management initiative. Despite its importance, unreliable data are
hindering marine resource management in Labuan. Addressing this, an acoustic survey
was conducted using side scan sonar (SSS) in Labuan Marine Park, a marine protected
area surrounded by shallow water reef within its island covering an area of 39.7 km 2 .
Here we show, a comprehensive coral patches coverage map generated from SSS
imagery interpretation. It is one of the efforts to comprehend the ecosystem better
through proper scientific collection of coral spatial distribution within the area.
However, we found that manual delineation was only applicable to locate corals at flat
plains while RSOBIA segmentation clusters corals with a slope attribute. We anticipate
to our assay to be a starting point for sophisticated future ecological assessments.
1868 | UMT UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH DAY 2018