THE USE OF LIDAR AND LIDAR MULTISPECTRAL FUSION TECHNIQUES FOR COASTAL LAND COVER DELINEATION

LIDAR data has become an essential tool for environmental and engineering geologists. Its uses in landslide mapping and hydrologic studies are well represented in the literature. In coastal zones it has been used in hurricane vulnerability and changes in terrains and general geomorphology. LIDAR data is still under-used in the coastal region. This is in part due to the fact that coastal ecozones are often very difficult to delineate using automated remote sensing techniques. Currently most of the accurate maps of the being made for ecological inventories are digitized by hand from aerial photography. LIDAR data is normally used to capture infrastructure information (again by hand), or are used in inundation and hydrologic studies. The forestry industry has been using LIDAR to assess tree stands for many years. Foresters have developed algorithms that look at return times to determine ground elevation, canopy height and under-story and mid-story density. This study looks at method of using LIDAR data alone to better subdivide the coastal environment using combining textual analysis with classification techniques to extract enhanced information about the coastal zone. The study then takes the techniques one step further fusing IKONOS multi-spectra imagery with the LIDAR data to enhance classifications. Both the LIDAR and LIDAR fusion analysis can be used for multiple purposes in the dynamic coastal zone environment. The land use / land cover inventories developed are necessary for management emergency response and sea level rise modeling. The techniques presented are faster than direct digitizing of aerial photography and produce a quality analysis for much of the work being done in the coastal zone.