Fugro Environmental have extensive experience in undertaking biotope and satellite mapping of marine and terrestrial habitats. These involve extensive processing of existing geophysical data in areas where the water depth exceeds 10m. In shallow and nearshore waters (<10m), Fugro Environmental can utilise specialist software to interpret and classify the biotopes visible in the raw satellite imagery.
Tapping into the resources of the Fugro Group, Fugro Environmental are able to task specific satellites to acquire targeted imagery to record current images of the survey area. These newly tasked images can be compared to existing data in order to monitor changes occurring in the environment.
Once the initial (unsupervised) classification of the satellite image has been completed, field teams are sent to the survey area to gather additional data to enhance and refine the classification categories (supervised classification).
Fugro Environmental are then able to compile reports that delineate the extent of the observed biotopes. These may include seagrass beds, mangroves and coral outcrops in addition to marine sediment types (e.g. sand, bare rock etc.) and terrestrial features such as wadi’s, vegetation, roads and buildings.