Seabed Characterization: Developing Fit for Purpose Methodologies

Abstract

SUMMARYWe briefly describe three methods of seabed characterization which are 'fit for purpose', in that each approach is well suited to distinct objectives e.g. characterizing glacial geomorphology and shallow glacial geology vs. rapid prediction of seabed sediment distribution via geostatistics. The methods vary from manual 'expert' interpretation to increasingly automated and mathematically based models, each with their own attributes and limitations. We would note however that increasing automation and mathematical sophistication does not necessarily equate to improve map outputs, or reduce the time required to produce them. Judgements must be made to select methodologies which are most appropriate to the variables mapped, and according to the extent and presentation scale of final maps.

Quantifying Marine Sedimentary Carbon: A New Spatial Analysis Approach Using Seafloor Acoustics, Imagery, and Ground-Truthing Data in Scotland

“…Selecting the optimum number of classes is subject to uncertainty and can involve complex processing, decision-making (Ahmed and Demšar, 2013), and a good understanding of the study area. To aid this decision, the number of user-defined classes was thus optimised using the MLC Confidence output from the ArcGIS tool (Dove et al, 2014) in combination with the results from the classification of video survey images. The UIC tool is a clustering algorithm that arranges the input data and identifies the most likely clusters based on the user-defined number to produce a signature file.…”