ABSTRACT: Remote sensing innovations applied to mapping the fluvial habitat of Atlantic Salmon.

CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Abstract

It is increasingly recognised that the modelling of the physical habitat of aquatic species must be extended to the scale of the entire river network. In this context, the measurement of fundamental physical habitat parameters such as substrate size, flow depth and flow velocity over the entire river length becomes crucial. However, current methods used by fluvial geomorphologists to characterize fluvial systems are very labour intensive and are not suited for river scale measurements. This paper presents a series of new remote sensing methods designed to automatically derive high resolution measurements of flow depth, substrate size and flow velocity over very long river reaches. The primary data source was a set of 3cm resolution airborne digital imagery covering the full 80km of the Sainte-Marguerite river in Quebec, Canada. Automated image processing methods were developed to derive median substrate size of the dry exposed areas and of the shallow bed (i.e. where the bed submerged but still visible) areas. Algorithms were also developed to measure flow depth in the shallow areas. The resolutions of the derived parameters are on the order of 1mı. These processes are fully automated and once calibrated, can be run without user intervention for the entire image set. In order to measure flow velocity, a ground based application of Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) was developed. This application, which works with commercially available video equipment, allows for the measurement of surface flow velocities from video footage of the river flow. It therefore greatly increases the productivity of flow velocity measurements. Finally, all the output data is georeferenced and can be managed in a Geographic Information System (GIS).

Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology