picture's pretty tough." 



The National Oceanic and 

 Atmospheric Administration 

 (NOAA) found that to be true. 



Charged with managing the 

 nation's wetlands, NOAA wants to 

 find and map each marsh, bog and 

 swamp from Onslow County, N.C., 

 to Orange County, Calif. Such 

 research will improve our under- 

 standing of coastal uplands, wetlands 

 and seagrass beds and the ways they 

 affect our marine resources. A more 

 thorough data base will help deci- 

 sion-makers devise better protection 

 policies. 



For NOAA to find and map each 

 U.S. wetland on its own would be 

 expensive and time-consuming. 

 Researchers such as Khorram and 

 Brockhaus have been using satellite 

 and other remotely sensed data to 

 map coastal regions throughout the 

 country. Linking their work, NOAA 

 found, would be the best way to 

 carry out its plan. 



About two years ago, NOAA 

 devised a wetlands mapping and 

 monitoring project to develop a 

 standard that can 

 be used to assess 

 coastal land cover 

 and habitats 

 nationwide. 



A pilot project 

 could tell NOAA 

 if satellite- 

 generated land 

 cover images from 

 two separate 

 regions could be 

 combined into one 

 large image. But 

 like two islands 

 without a bridge, 

 no one had a 

 formula for joining 

 the two data sets 

 together. 



Simply put, it 

 was up to 



Colors ore actually 

 different wavelengths 

 of light. |P 

 di object Lue see 

 reflects its own 

 signature combination 

 of light on the spectrum 

 Colors make up 

 the shorter waves. 

 But the mechanical 

 eyes of a satellite 

 like Landsat can sense 

 longer infrared waves 



and a thermal, or 

 heat-sensitive, one too. 



Khorram and his team to build that 

 bridge. 



At the same time Khorram and 

 his associates were studying the 

 Albemarle-Pamlico, researchers at 

 the Oak Pudge Laboratory in Tennes- 

 see were investigating Virginia's 

 Chesapeake Bay. Both studies used 

 Landsat digitized data, and their 

 boundary lines touched. So NOAA 

 chose the two states to test its idea of 

 merging regional wetland invento- 

 ries. 



"Even more remarkable was that 

 the two studies took place about the 

 same point in time," Brockhaus adds. 

 The two research groups even had 

 one Landsat scene taken on the same 

 day in 1988. 



"That's one of the reasons they 

 did it," Brockhaus says. "They 

 wanted to see how it would work in 

 the best situation." 



With support from UNC Sea 

 Grant, Khorram, Brockhaus and their 

 colleagues went to work. 



One of the first steps was to 

 merge the states' two different land- 

 use classification systems. 



Khorram 's team 

 combined some of 

 its 20 categories 

 for the Albemarle- 

 Pamlico research 

 to correspond with 

 Oak Ridge's 14. 

 i Then they recoded 

 their data and 

 drew up one 

 satellite-generated 

 image of the 

 North Carolina 

 and Virginia 

 coastlines. 



The result is a 

 vibrant paintbox 

 picture of thou- 

 sands of dots of 

 color. 



"Each color 



Clay Nolert 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 1 1 



