Morphometric characterisation of rocky reef using multibeam acoustic bathymetric data

Physical parameters of the seabed can be automatically classified using terrestrial landscape morphometric tools. This case study demonstrates the classification of multibeam acoustic data into six ecologically relevant classes in a marine park off the coast of Western Australia. The results of this application, improve the access to fine scale reef characteristics which helps to develop better management strategies for benthic habitats. This new morphometric classification method is compared with traditional qualitative feature identification. © 2007 IEEE.