Collaborators:  University of Maine and University of Wollongong, Australia
Funded by :     Maine Space Grant Consortium  

Contact:          Habtom Ressom, Siva Srirangam, Padma Natarajan

Seagrass beds have been a critical coastal habitat for many aquatic species. They aid in nutrient cycling and are stabilizing agents in coastal sedimentation and erosion processes. Monitoring seagrass health can provide vital clues to the water quality and health and status of many important species such as shrimp, crabs, scallops, redfish and mullet. Photosynthetic efficiency is an indicator of the plant stress and can be used to monitor seagrass health. However, in-situ measurements of photosynthetic efficiency are time consuming and expensive. The objective of this project is to investigate the use of neural networks to estimate photosynthetic efficiency from remotely sensed spectral reflectance measurements.

Click here to read an article about this project in UMaine Today

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