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Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 145–155

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Remote Sensing of Environment


journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rse

Capability of the Sentinel 2 mission for tropical coral reef mapping and coral
bleaching detection
John Hedley a,⁎, Chris Roelfsema b, Benjamin Koetz c, Stuart Phinn b
a
ARGANS Ltd., Drake Building, Tamar Science Park, Plymouth, PL6 8BY, United Kingdom
b
Center for Spatial Environmental Research, School of Geography Planning and Environmental Management, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
c
ESA/ESRIN, Casella Postale 64, 00044 Frascati, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The Sentinel 2 mission offers continuity of service for the moderate resolution multispectral SPOT XS and
Received 13 December 2010 Landsat Thematic Mapper series sensors, but also offers several design improvements that may lead to en-
Received in revised form 9 May 2011 hanced capability in coral reef mapping applications. In this study modeling and simulated image analyses
Accepted 11 June 2011
were conducted to evaluate the relative capability of the Sentinel 2 instrument design compared to SPOT-4
Available online 16 February 2012
and Landsat ETM+, for mapping bathymetry and benthic composition, and for coral bleaching detection.
Keywords:
The analyses involved propagating noise and environmental uncertainties through a radiative transfer
Sentinel 2 model inversion to quantify uncertainty in retrievable parameters from each sensor. The experiment struc-
Coral reef ture included factors for sensor-environmental noise, band choice, and complexity of benthic reflectance
Uncertainty model. Results indicate that while variables related to reef ‘health’ such as coral mortality and algal cover can-
Mapping not be mapped accurately by this class of instrument; Sentinel 2 does have improved ability for discrimina-
Bleaching tion of reef benthic composition over SPOT-4 and Landsat ETM+. The key enabling design factors are the
narrowness of bands, increased spatial resolution and additional band at 443 nm; instrument noise was a
less significant factor. Rapid revisit times, global coverage, and freely available data suggest the potential
for time series analyses. Sentinel 2 may also be capable of bleaching detection by change analysis given effec-
tive methods for precise cross-image image radiometric and spatial alignment.
© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction state. In addition to monitoring of current status, maps of benthos


have the potential to inform management decisions such as the place-
Tropical coral reefs are globally important environments both in ment of marine protected areas (Mora, 2008) and could in future be
terms of preservation of biodiversity and for the substantial economic used to seed models to predict ecosystem dynamics (Dunstan &
value their ecosystem services provide to human communities Johnson, 2006; Mumby et al., 2006).
(Costanza et al., 1997; Moberg & Folke, 1999; TEEB, 2010). Managing Given the large spatial extent and inaccessibility of many reefs,
and monitoring reefs under current environmental threats (GBO-3, there is a pressing need for a coral reef earth observation program
2010; Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007; Wilkinson, 1999) requires infor- at appropriate spatial and temporal scales and with sufficient de-
mation on their composition and condition, i.e. the spatial and tempo- scriptive power to capture ecologically significant reef develop-
ral distribution of benthos and substrates within the reef area. ments around the world. The potential of hyperspectral airborne
Determining the relative abundance of biotic types such as coral data has been demonstrated in isolated studies for discrimination
and macroalgae is the key for detecting and monitoring important bi- of live from dead coral (Mumby et al., 2001, 2004) mapping of
otic changes such as phase or regime shifts due to changes in environ- macroalgae versus coral (Goodman & Ustin, 2007) and bathymetry
mental conditions (Dudgeon et al., 2010). Coral bleaching events, and water optical properties (Hedley et al., 2009; Mobley et al.,
where stressed corals expel their symbiotic algae and turn white in 2005). However, airborne campaigns do not fulfil the objective of
color, can provide indications of anthropogenic stressors and climate operational cost-effective spatial and temporal coverage. An alter-
change impacts (Eakin et al., 2010; Hoegh-Guldberg, 1999), while native approach is to develop improved methodologies to extract
subsequent coral mortality may be a key determinant of future reef data from existing or upcoming operational satellite sensors, such
as the Sentinel 2 multispectral instrument. Numerous reef mapping
studies based on classification have established a base line perfor-
⁎ Corresponding author. mance for SPOT-4 and Landsat ETM + as being restricted to map-
E-mail address: jhedley@argans.co.uk (J. Hedley). ping geomorphological zones and low to moderate habitat

0034-4257/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.rse.2011.06.028
146 J. Hedley et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 145–155

complexity (Andréfouët et al., 2001; Caplosini et al., 2003; Mumby mapping. The key mapping and detection objectives that underpin
et al., 1997). However, Sentinel 2 offers several design features the analysis are:
that may improve the accuracy with which coral reef properties
can be mapped from multispectral satellite image data (Martimort • Bathymetry.
et al., 2009). Importantly, it combines and improves the spectral • Basic geomorphological mapping of reef extent: reef fauna area ver-
and spatial resolutions of the Landsat TM/ETM + and SPOT XS series sus sand.
respectively, and meets operational continuity requirements for • Coral reef ‘health’: detecting coral mortality or shifts to macroalgal
regular global repeat acquisitions, but with improved instrument domination.
radiometric digitization that may enhance performance in low- • Coral bleaching: detecting various levels of bleaching in areas of
radiance marine applications (12 bits vs. 8 for Landsat, Drusch et high coral cover.
al., 2010). Other specific design features are: 1) an additional blue
wavelength band that may improve atmospheric correction or help The limiting capability for any use of optical remote sensing to dis-
to distinguish the confounding effects of variation in water column criminate features is the extent to which sources of environmental varia-
colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM); 2) a 1.6 micron band for tion and instrument noise overwhelm any systematic differences in the
improved cirrus cloud detection, which is often a serious confound- contribution from the features of interest. In a shallow-water mapping
ing factor in coastal areas; 3) improved spatial resolution of 10 m context, this variation includes basic variation in the reflectance of the
in water penetrating wavelengths 490 nm–665 nm; and 4) short benthic types, spatial variation in water optical properties, depth, surface
time period coverage and revisit of five days for coastal zones, facil- reflection, atmospheric backscatter and instrument internal noise. The
itating time series or change detection algorithms of the type that analysis presented here (Fig. 1) was based on radiative transfer modeling
have been used to detect bleaching in other instruments (Elvidge and is similar to previously published analyses that relate the magnitude
et al., 2004). However, one limiting factor is that the current Sentinel of the difference between modeled reflectance spectra to an estimate of
2 mission requirement is for geographical coverage restricted to sensor-environment noise (Hochberg & Atkinson, 2003; Kutser et al.,
20 km from the coastline of land masses larger than 100 km 2 2003; Lubin et al., 2001; Vahtmäe et al., 2006). A model inversion ap-
(Drusch et al., 2010) so global coverage in a coral reef context is proach was used based on the design of physics-based shallow-water
not achieved. image processing algorithms (Brando et al., 2009; Hedley et al., 2009;
In this paper a sensitivity analysis is presented to evaluate the ex- Lee et al., 1998) that facilitates both a pure modeling analysis and evalu-
tent to which the improved spatial, spectral, radiometric and tempo- ation from simulated images generated from spatially and spectrally re-
ral dimensions of the Sentinel 2 multispectral instrument may sampled hyperspectral data. The approach can also be considered a
enhance performance over SPOT-4 and Landsat ETM+ for coral reef prototype image analysis algorithm. Accurate and reliable predictions

Fig. 1. Processing chain flowchart.


J. Hedley et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 145–155 147

from pure modeling analyses are difficult; hence the modeling work with (NIR) band would be used for deglint pre-processing (Kay et al.,
the Sentinel 2 sensor design was bench-marked against comparable treat- 2009); this was accommodated in the sensor-environmental noise
ments for SPOT-4 and Landsat ETM+. This provided a sense of Sentinel 2's evaluation (see below, Table 2). Simulated SPOT-4 and ETM+ images
capabilities compared to sensors of well established operational had two and three bands respectively. To evaluate the specific contribu-
performance. tion of the additional visible range bands three simulated images were
generated for Sentinel 2 that respectively included 3 bands (2, 3, 4), 4
2. Methods bands (2, 3, 4, 5) and 5 bands (1–5) (Table 2). Due to the high quality
of the source image and the spatial down-sampling the resulting
2.1. Overview simulated images had 10 to 100 times less pixel-to-pixel noise than
that found in actual multispectral satellite data, so effectively the base
The analysis processing chain is illustrated in Fig. 1. A forward simulated images were noise-free. Hence, it was possible to add the de-
radiative transfer model was used to model hyperspectral remote sensing sired sensor-environmental noise afterwards using estimations from
reflectance at the sensor, which was then re-sampled according to the in- real imagery. This approach permits a highly controlled test of the effect
strument band response functions. An estimate of pixel-to-pixel sensor- of spectral resolution and sensor-environmental noise on the analysis of
environmental noise was then back-propagated through the radiative actual remotely sensed data. Note however, the spatial point-spread
transfer model by a fast inversion algorithm, to give the fundamental function (PSF, Forster & Best, 1994) of the multispectral satellite sensors
image uncertainty in the estimated parameters resulting from the varia- was ignored; the simulated images are far more ‘crisp’ in appearance
tions introduced by the environmental and sensor noise. This ‘fundamen- than would be expected. However, the range of spatial resolutions uti-
tal uncertainty’ is manifest as error bars on the mean cover or bathymetry lised does allow some inferences to be made on the effect of spatial
estimation. In contrast, the true accuracy of the mean estimations can point spread.
only be assessed from field survey data and in this study is termed
‘model-fit’ error. For a given input reflectance spectrum the width of the 2.3. Forward model
fundamental uncertainty confidence intervals indicate the ability of the
forward model to support the estimation of a parameter in the context The forward model used for estimating above water hyperspectral
of the spectral resolution and noise. The model inversion was applied in reflectance, Rrs(λ), was Lee et al's (1998) semi-analytical model for
two contexts: 1) to simulated imagery modeled for SPOT-4: Landsat optically shallow-water remote sensing reflectance,
ETM+ and Sentinel 2 from a high resolution hyperspectral airborne
image; and 2) to itself in a pure modeling context, where the model Rrs ðλÞ ¼ f ðP; G; X; H; e1 ; e2 ; m; λÞ ð1Þ
was run forward to generate a reflectance spectrum, noise was added
and the model was then inverted. In both cases the noise propagated
through the inversion was based on two treatments: ‘best-case’ and Where λ is wavelength, P, G, X, H are real values describing the ab-
‘worst-case’ noise scenarios found in a range of actual SPOT-4 and ETM sorption due to phytoplankton, CDOM absorption, particulate back-
+ imagery. For Sentinel 2 plausible best and worst noise levels were esti- scatter and depth respectively. In this application benthic
mated based on published mission requirements for instrument noise reflectance is modelled as a linear spectral mix in proportion m,
(Drusch et al., 2010), and the relationship between published instrument 0 ≤ m ≤ 1, of two endmember reflectances identified by the integer in-
noise and actual image derived sensor-environmental noise for SPOT and dices e1 and e2, 0 ≤ e1,e2 ≤ ne, where ne is the number of benthic end-
ETM+ (Mika, 1997; Porez et al., 2008; Valorge et al., 2004). To factor in member reflectances included in the model (Wettle & Brando, 2006).
variable complexity in the forward model, all analyses presented here in- Lee et al. (1998) developed the model as statistical reduction from
cluded two treatments of differing variability of benthic reflectance, many thousands of runs of Hydrolight, a full numerical integration so-
denoted ‘simple’ and ‘complex’. A summary of different treatment factors lution package (Mobley & Sundman, 2001). For the parameter range
of the analysis is given in Table 1, while the following sections give details used here, and for wavelengths over 400 nm–720 nm it was verified
of each of the methodological components. that the model gives virtually a 1:1 correspondence to the full inte-
gration technique for all but the brightest substrates in extremely
2.2. Simulated imagery shallow water (b0.5 m, using open-source PlanarRad software,
Hedley, 2008). Discrepancies between the model and reality would
A 1 m spatial resolution 17-band CASI (Compact Airborne Spectro- be ‘model-fit error’, whereas the primary emphasis of this paper is
graphic Imager) image of Heron Reef, Australia, was used to generate ‘fundamental uncertainty’, a property that will be relatively insensi-
corresponding simulated SPOT-4, ETM+ and Sentinel 2 imagery. This tive to the approximations made in Lee at al.'s formulation. In practice
was achieved by spatial down-sampling and weighted band averaging Eq. (1) was implemented as a simple set of equations that are detailed
of the CASI image to the corresponding sensor configurations (Joyce, together with the upper and lower limits of P, G and X in Hedley et al.
2004; Table 2). The source CASI image was atmospherically corrected (2009). The input depth range for H was 0 to 30 m throughout, cho-
to above-surface remote sensing reflectance, Rrs, before resampling sen to be substantially above the maximum depth of approximately
(Joyce, 2004). Bands above 700 nm were not included as these wave- 20 m found in the echo-sounding data associated with the imagery
lengths have very low water penetration. In practice a near-infra-red (Hedley et al., 2009).

Table 1
Factorial structure of the analysis undertaken. Five band treatments were combined with best-case and worst-case noise scenarios and six benthic endmember treatments. Noise-
perturbed model inversions were applied to images simulated from CASI data and to the forward model itself. Note that not all treatment combinations were performed. *Unless
specifically qualified ‘Sentinel 2’ refers to the 5B treatment.

Sensor bands (5) Noise model (2) Number of endmembers (ne) (6) Data source (2)

SPOT-4 (bands 1, 2) Best case 6 (mapping, simple) Simulated images


Landsat ETM + (bands 1, 2, 3) Worst case 13 (mapping, complex) Model self-inversion
Sentinel 2 3B (bands 2, 3, 4) 2 (bleaching, simple)
Sentinel 2 4B (bands 2, 3, 4, 5) 5 (bleaching, complex)
*Sentinel 2 5B (bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) 7 (mapping with bleaching, simple)
15 (mapping and bleaching, complex)
148 J. Hedley et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 145–155

Table 2
Band specification of SPOT-4, Landsat ETM + and Sentinel 2. CASI wavelengths used to simulate modeled images of each sensor type are given, as are sensor-environment noise
characteristics estimated from actual images and published data. Published instrument SNR sources are: Porez et al. (2008), Mika (1997), Drusch et al. (2010). SNRE is the mean
signal divided by standard deviation from a region of at least 1000 pixels. Sentinel 2 SNRE is calculated from the estimated a values assuming the same deep-water radiance as
found in the Landsat images.

Band Low lim. High lim. Spatial resol. CASI bands and wavelengths Value of a as in Image deep- Example published instrument
Section 2.5 water SNRE SNR

nm nm m (no.) nm–nm Best Worst Best Worst RU = Wm-2sr-1um-1

SPOT-4
B1 (3) 500 590 20 (5) 508.5–580.5 1.54 4.43 45.8 28.8 188 at 118 RU
B2 (2) 610 680 20 (5) 608.5–678.5 1.57 4.38 24.4 15.8 198 at 102 RU
B3 (1) 780 890 20 n/a (deglint) (50 × 50 pixel image)

Landsat ETM +
1 450 520 30 (4) 449.5–523.5 0.86 3.26 42.6 34.6 32 at min. scene rad.
~ 150 at max. (Landsat 5)
2 530 610 30 (4) 546.5–599.5 0.31 2.25 28.8 18.0 35 at min. scene rad.
~ 200 at max. (Landsat 5)
3 630 690 30 (3) 638.5–678.5 0.84 3.18 14.3 7.7 26 at min. scene rad.
~ 200 at max. (Landsat 5)
4 780 900 30 n/a (deglint)

Sentinel 2 (Estimated) (From est. a)

1 433 453 60 (1) 429.5–449.5 0.5 5.0 63.4 30.5 129 at 129 RU
2 458 523 10 (3) 469.5–523.5 0.5 5.0 57.7 27.9 154 at 128 RU
3 543 578 10 (3) 546.5–580.5 0.5 5.0 28.8 11.3 168 at 128 RU
4 650 680 10 (2) 659.5–678.5 0.5 5.0 18.4 5.2 142 at 108 RU
5 698 713 20 (1) 703.5–711.5 0.5 5.0 11.5 3.5 117 at 75 RU
(mission requirements)

The forward model calculations were all performed for 160 wave- spectra (Fig. 2). This term represents the variability in benthic reflec-
lengths at 2 nm intervals from 401 to 719 nm. The sensor band re- tance independent of water column effects, the differing analysis
sponses were then calculated as a mean box function based on treatments affect the extent to which this variation corresponds to
published upper and lower sensor band wavelengths (Table 2). the benthic types of interest. For the analyses not concerned with
Given the level of uncertainties in benthic reflectances and sensor- coral bleaching two basic treatments were used, ‘simple’ ne = 6 and
environmental noise, utilising a full wavelength dependent spectral ‘complex’ ne = 13. In both cases six benthic types were included:
relative response function for each band was considered unnecessar- sand, live coral, dead coral, macroalgae, benthic microalgae, and sea-
ily complex, and in addition would not be consistent with the simu- grass (Fig. 2). The ne spectra were selected from a large in situ collect-
lated imagery. It was also verified by additional analyses, not ed spectral library of over 400 Pacific reef benthic reflectances
presented here, that the small discrepancies between the simulated (methods given in Lim et al., 2009; Roelfsema et al., 2006) so that
image band wavelengths and those of the multispectral satellite sen- for ne = 6 the selected spectra were the ‘most representative’ spectra
sors (Table 2) had a negligible impact on the results. for each benthic type, whereas for ne = 13 each type was represented
by two or three spectra that most effectively represented the range of
2.4. Benthic reflectances the spectral reflectances of that type. These spectra were selected by a
spectral projection method similar to the automatic endmember ex-
The forward model expressed by Eq. (1) contains a term for spec- traction implemented in the ENVI software. For sand and coral the au-
tral diffuse benthic reflectance ρ(λ) that is generated from a linear tomatically determined most representative reflectances were of a
mix of two spectral benthic reflectances drawn from a library of ne similar mid-range brightness and did not really reflect the typical

Benthic Bleached
Model Sand Coral Dead Coral Macroalgae Seagrass
Microalgae Coral

Simple

Complex

Fig. 2. Endmember reflectance spectra, ρ(λ), as used in the different treatments of modeled benthic complexity and in the bleaching sensitivity analyses.
J. Hedley et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 145–155 149

brightness difference between coral and sand in a reef image. So the


most representative coral was set to the darkest of the coral range re-
flectances, and sand was set to the higher of the two sand range re-
flectances (Fig. 2).
The pure modeling bleaching detection sensitivity analysis utilised
four additional endmember configurations (Table. 1). Treatments
ne = 7 and ne = 15 were equivalent to ne = 6 and ne = 13, but with
one ‘most representative’ and two ‘range limit’ bleached coral reflec-
tance spectra added respectively. Sensitivity analysis performed with
these treatments would be equivalent to attempting to map bleached
coral simultaneously with other benthic types. However, bleaching
detection is more typically attempted as a change detection between
two images where only the spectral difference between non-bleached
and bleached coral is relevant (Elvidge et al., 2004). Treatments
ne = 2, and ne = 5 include only live coral and bleached coral spectra,
and so these analyses approximate to a bleaching change detection
between two images. In practice it would still be necessary to some-
how separate coral areas from other benthos.

2.5. Sensor-environmental noise equivalent reflectance, NEΔRrs

In order to evaluate the spectral separability of model outputs it is


necessary to evaluate differences between spectral reflectances (Rrs)
relative to the sensor-environmental noise equivalent perturbation
of Rrs, NEΔRrs (Brando et al., 2009). Previous shallow-water modeling
and inversion applications have estimated the combined sensor-
environmental NEΔRrs from imagery as the band-wise standard devi-
ation over areas of deep water where the subsurface upward radiance
is assumed uniform (Brando et al., 2009; Wettle et al., 2004). Here, a
similar approach was taken but the full covariance matrix was evalu- Fig. 3. (a) Magnitude and dependence on radiance of modeled SNRE and (b) the corre-
ated to allow for spectrally correlated noise. For SPOT-4 and Landsat sponding noise standard deviation, based on best-case and worst-case sensor-
ETM+ ‘best-case’ and ‘worst-case’ deep-water noise covariance ma- environmental noise a value estimations (Table 3) (best and worst are upper and
lower lines in each pair).
trices were established from a range of imagery. Note that before-
hand, pixel-pixel variation due to water surface reflection was
minimised by using a near-infrared (NIR) band to perform a ‘deglint’
operation (Table 2, Hedley et al., 2005). 2.6. Model inversion and noise propagation
Since NEΔRrs was evaluated over deep-water areas comprising the
darkest areas of an image, whereas coral reef features include shallow The simulated image analysis and the pure modeling sensitivity
sand areas that can be among the brightest, the need for a radiance- analysis proceeded in an identical manner, the only difference being
dependence noise model was evaluated. This applied the model in the source of reflectance spectra to be inverted (Fig. 1). In the sim-
form used by Valorge et al. (2004), σ 2 = a + kL, where a and k are ulated image analysis source spectra were the modeled pixel reflec-
the constant and radiance-dependent (L) noise terms. Valorge et al. tances, in the pure modeling analysis spectra were generated by the
(2004) present a diagram for which SPOT band 2 instrument noise forward model from random input parameter values, in some cases
k ≈ 2.52 × 10 − 3 and a ≈ 0.15, giving instrument radiance-dependent at a specific fixed depth. For each reflectance spectra to be inverted
SNR (signal magnitude divided by noise standard deviation) that var- twenty new spectra were created by generating an additive spectral
ies in a very similar range to published Landsat series instrument op- sensor-environmental noise component utilising the noise covariance
erational measured SNRs (Table 2, Mika, 1997). In a shallow-water matrix. Each of the twenty noise-perturbed reflectance spectra were
context the primary variation in brightness will be in subsurface re- then independently inverted using the Adaptive Look-up Table
flectance, while the primary pixel-to-pixel noise term is reflectance (ALUT) scheme described in Hedley et al. (2009). Each source reflec-
from the upper side of the air–water interface. Hence brightness tance spectra therefore resulted in twenty estimations for each input
and environmental noise are largely decoupled and, due to the simi- parameter of Eq. (1). From this set the mean and upper and lower
larity in SPOT and Landsat ETM+ SNRs, assuming the fixed slope confidence intervals of any desired percentage in 10% steps can be de-
k = 2.5 × 10 − 3 applies throughout is reasonable. Consequently, rived for that pixel. The results presented below consider both accu-
while the instrument SNR varies with radiance, the absolute magni- racy assessment of the mean estimation i.e. ‘model-fit error’, and
tude of the noise variance is close to constant (Fig. 3) and so utilising the width of the 90% confidence intervals, i.e. ‘fundamental uncertain-
a radiance-dependent covariance matrix was considered an unneces- ty’. The focus was on the fundamental uncertainty of benthic type
sary complication for the analysis. cover assessment under the differing treatments of sensor spectral
For Sentinel 2, band variance was modelled based on best and resolution, best and worst-case noise, and for differing complexity
worst-case a values of 0.5 and 5.0 respectively, as these are slightly of benthic reflectance treatment. However, the accuracy and uncer-
below and above the lower and upper a values derived from SPOT-4 tainty of depth estimation was also investigated in some detail since
and ETM+ imagery (Table 2). For SPOT and Landsat the off- this was objectively verifiable for the simulated images with boat
diagonal covariance matrix values were in a fairly constant propor- echo-sound data (details given in Hedley et al., 2009). While insuffi-
tion to those on the diagonal, and this proportion was used to set cient data were available for reef benthic validation at pixel scales
the off-diagonal values of the Sentinel 2 best and worst-case noise larger than 10 m, visual interpretation allowed a qualitative estimate
matrices. of benthic mapping model-fit error.
150 J. Hedley et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 145–155

ne SPOT-4 Landsat ETM+ Sentinel 2 (3B) Sentinel 2 (4B) Sentinel 2 (5B)

13

Fig. 4. Accuracy of bathymetric retrievals from simulated image data of SPOT-4, Landsat ETM + and Sentinel 2, compared to boat echo depth soundings and using the 6 and 13 end-
member benthic reflectance model. Sentinel 2 was tested utilising three band sets: 3B, bands 2, 3, 4; 4B, bands 2, 3, 4, 5; 5B bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Each point is the mean from 20 best-
case sensor-environmental noise-perturbed inversions. Dotted lines are the 90% confidence intervals from best-case and worst-case inversions averaged over bins of width 1 m
along the x-axis. The reported slope and r2 are from a linear regression over 5067 points and Δy is the mean absolute residual error between the sonar and estimated depths.

SPOT-4 (band 1, 545 nm) Landsat ETM+ (band 2, 570 nm) Sen2 5B (band 3, 560 nm)

a b c

d e f

g h i

j k l

m n o

Fig. 5. Model and spectral library capability to extract bathymetry, sand and live coral cover from simulated image data. Plots correspond to an image raster transect (top panels)
from shallow back reef of mixed benthos (b 600 m), through fore reef of high coral cover (700 m–800 m) to a deep sand area (> 900 m). Solid line is the mean from 20 best-case
sensor-environmental noise-perturbed inversions at each pixel. Dark gray is the 90% confidence intervals from those inversions, light gray are the 90% confidence intervals from 20
worst-case noise-perturbed inversions. Results for 6 endmember (ne = 6) and 13 endmember model (ne = 13) are shown.
J. Hedley et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 145–155 151

3. Results sand and coral cover along an image transect (Fig. 5). Most treat-
ments were capable of indicating that the right-hand end of the tran-
3.1. Bathymetry estimation from simulated images sect was sand dominated (this is known as true from visual
interpretation of the image and local knowledge), but only the 6 end-
Bathymetric estimations over the 0–10 m range were consistent member Sentinel 2 treatment convincingly identified sand with low
with boat echo-sound data for all simulated images under both best uncertainty (Fig. 5i). Uncertainty for identifying sand was greatly in-
and worst-case noise scenarios and for simple and complex benthic re- creased under the 13 endmember model and almost 100% for SPOT-4
flectance models (Fig. 4). Qualitatively, both model-fit accuracy and and ETM+. While neither SPOT-4 nor ETM+ could accurately deter-
fundamental uncertainty improved systematically as the number of mine trends in coral cover with any certainty (Fig. 5j,k,m,n), qualita-
bands increased from SPOT to Landsat and through the three Sentinel tively Sentinel 2 coral estimation was plausible. The 13 endmember
2 treatments (Fig. 4). For all sensor treatments the best-case versus model results were spatially noisy but did identify coral cover at the
worst-case noise factor made only a relatively small difference to funda- fore reef as high and around 80 - 100%, which agrees with field survey
mental uncertainty. The most accurate result with the lowest uncertain- data taken contemporaneously with the imagery.
ty to 20 m depth was the best-case noise, 6 endmember, 5 band Sentinel
2 treatment (Fig. 4j). The same treatment with the more complex 13 3.3. Benthic type and bleaching uncertainty from pure modeling
endmember model was also able to support reasonable bathymetric es-
timation (Fig. 4e), but for the Sentinel 2 treatments omitting the 443 nm The pure modeling analysis indicated that, in the absence of fac-
band the 13 endmember model introduced model-fit error, perceived as tors concerned with spatial resolution, the Sentinel 2 5-band treat-
a ‘kink’ in the point distribution, (Fig. 4c and d). Statistical measures of ment was marginally more accurate than both SPOT-4 and Landsat
bathymetric accuracy, such as the r-squared value and slope (Fig. 4), ETM+ in discriminating the proportion of benthic type (Fig. 6). At a
agree some extent with the qualitative interpretation. However, the fixed depth of 2 m the 90% confidence intervals for retrieval of pro-
echo-sound data is dominated by a large number of shallow points, so portion of sand, coral, dead coral and algae all had consistently higher
the mean absolute error does not capture the superior deep-water per- positive slopes for Sentinel 2 than for the other sensors. However,
formance of some treatments (e.g. Fig. 4j). only sand cover in the simple endmember model was reliably retriev-
Qualitative assessment of bathymetry along an image transect able (Fig. 6a). For dead coral and macroalgae under any sensor treat-
showed that the higher spatial resolution of Sentinel 2 improves ca- ment the lower uncertainty bounds were generally at zero, with only
pability to resolve features such as the sharp drop at the fore reef a moderate upward slope on the upper bound. (Fig. 6c, d, g and h). In
and the small scale variation due to upstanding coral heads practice, this would translate to a complete inability to quantify
(Fig. 5c). However, in a real image the point-spread function may re- macroalgae or dead coral in imagery from any of these sensors; a lim-
duce this capability. For all sensors, bathymetric uncertainty was very itation that is well known for SPOT and Landsat (Caplosini et al.,
low in the shallow (2 m) back reef area at the left end of the transect 2003).
and the best-case versus worst-case noise treatment made relatively For all sensor treatments the ability to estimate the benthic cover
little difference (Fig. 5a–c). of bleached coral in best-case noise-perturbed data was directly cor-
related with complexity of the benthic model used and the depth
3.2. Benthic cover along a simulated image transect (Fig. 7). However, the performance of Sentinel 2 stood out under con-
ditions of shallow-water and complex endmember models (Fig. 7c,
The Sentinel 2 treatment performed substantially better than both g). At 5 m depth all sensors performed equally badly displaying
SPOT-4 and Landsat ETM + with respect to qualitative assessment of high fundamental uncertainty with a weak ability to recover the

Fig. 6. Model and spectral library capability to detect individual endmember types under best-case sensor-environmental noise at 2 m depth, and for benthic reflectance models of 6
and 13 endmembers. Lines are upper and lower 90% confidence intervals from 105 inversions averaged over bins of width 0.05 on the x-axis. Greater capability is indicated primarily
by lines with a gradient closer to one and secondly by less distance between the upper and lower lines in the pair.
152 J. Hedley et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 145–155

Sentinel 2 was superior for objectives including complex benthic end-


member models. Previous empirical and modeling studies (Caplosini
(a-b) 2 endmember model et al., 2003; Hochberg & Atkinson, 2003; Mumby et al, 1997) have
concluded that Landsat ETM+ performs well and is cost-effective
for moderate complexity habitat mapping, so Sentinel 2 will be a
more than adequate continuity service for this task. The increase in
the performance of the Sentinel 2 treatment over SPOT-4 and Landsat
ETM+ was far greater than the performance difference between
them. The improved capability to handle spectrally complex benthic
models suggests that Sentinel 2 may be capable of a higher level of de-
scriptive resolution than previously seen in this class of sensor, regard-
less of whether image analysis is conducted by spectral matching
(Lesser & Mobley, 2007) or a classification approach (Green et al.,
(c-d) 5 endmember model 2000). In addition, the Sentinel 2 pixel areal cover of 100 m 2 versus
Landsat's 900 m2 will reduce sub-pixel bathymetric and benthic hetero-
geneity, which is a primary confounding factor for analyses (Fig. 5, Lim
et al., 2009). Nevertheless, capability will be dependent on regional reef
composition; in particular the model here was based on a Pacific reef
spectral library. For Caribbean reefs, where benthic diversity is lower,
capability on benthic mapping objectives may be higher.

4.2. Ability to detect bleaching

The Sentinel 2 treatment was notable with respect to the ability to


detect bleaching in shallow water with a complex endmember model
(e-f) 7 endmember model (Fig. 7). The depth range of capability was nevertheless limited. If the
modeling exercise results are interpreted literally then bleaching by
change detection in Sentinel 2 data could identify almost any level
of bleaching in full coral cover at 1 m depth, with a 90% chance of
an error less than 10% of the pixel area (Fig. 7c). Whereas at 5 m
depth the 90% confidence intervals are only fully disjoint at zero or
100% bleaching (Fig. 7d). In practice this would not be a severe limi-
tation since operational capability to detect bleaching even limited to
the first few meters would be a significant advance. Complete accep-
tance of these results assumes full coral cover in a 10 m pixel. Studies
based on classification of aerial photography have suggested spatial
heterogeneity dictates an optimal resolution of less than 1 m for
(g-h) 15 endmember model bleaching detection (Andréfouët et al., 2002). Detection of a substan-
tial bleaching event has been demonstrated in IKONOS with 4 m
pixels (Elvidge et al., 2004). Sentinel 2 surpasses these data sources
in terms of spectral and radiometric resolution, which may to some
extent compensate for reduced spatial resolution.
Methodological factors to bear in mind are the limitations of the
endmember models used here and the level of variation in water op-
tical properties, which were restricted to reasonably high clarity. In
our model the non-pure water fraction absorption at 440 nm ranged
from 0 to 0.3 m − 1, and the particulate backscatter coefficient,
bbp(440), ranged from 0 to 0.006 m − 1 (Hedley et al., 2009). This
backscatter range is reasonable compared to published in situ coral
reef data in remote sensing studies, e.g. Lesser and Mobley (2007)
Fig. 7. Model and spectral library capability to detect bleached coral under best-case give a bbp of 0.0028 for their Lee Stocking Island site, Bahamas. How-
sensor-environmental noise at depths 1 m and 5 m. Benthic reflectance models are of ever, reef environments can be optically dynamic and empirical data
increasing complexity, 2 and 5 endmembers contain bleached and live coral only, 7
and 15 contain additional benthic types. Lines are upper and lower 90% confidence
is lacking on the backscatter from calcium carbonate sediment resus-
intervals from 105 inversions averaged over bins of width 0.05 on the x-axis. pension events that could be confused with coral bleaching.
Overall, while Fig. 7 may be optimistic regarding bleaching detect-
ability that would be achievable in practice the implied relative per-
proportion of bleaching, again indicating that bleaching detection at formance of Sentinel 2 versus the operational sensors can be
these depths remains outside of the capability of this class of sensor. considered robust. Given the rapid repeat time and possibility for
time series analysis Sentinel 2 will therefore be a promising instru-
4. Discussion ment to investigate possibility of bleaching detection.

4.1. Sentinel 2 for coral reef mapping and monitoring 4.3. Sensor design factors contributing to enhanced accuracy for reef
mapping
For bathymetry estimation, benthic type mapping and bleaching
detection, the 5 band Sentinel 2 treatment consistently outperformed The analysis structure permits several conclusions to be made about
both the SPOT-4 and Landsat ETM + treatments. In particular, which factors of the Sentinel 2 sensor treatment were important in
J. Hedley et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 145–155 153

contributing to enhanced performance. Fig. 4a to e illustrate of the value Adding the Sentinel 2 NIR band centered at 705 m made very little
of additional visible range bands for determining bathymetry, the difference to the bathymetric estimation accuracy or uncertainty in
model-fit error improves systematically with band count, especially any treatment (e.g. Fig. 4c vs. 4d), because this wavelength has very
for deeper retrievals. Interestingly the 3 band Sentinel 2 treatment gen- low penetration into the water. Conversely, adding the Sentinel 2
erally performed better than the similar 3 band ETM+ treatment blue band centered at 443 nm was the key to the performance of
(Fig. 4c vs. 4b), which means the improvement was either from the the Sentinel 2 5 band treatment in extracting bathymetry. In practice,
higher spatial resolution or narrowness of the second and third Sentinel the use of the 443 nm band in its intended role as an aid to atmo-
2 bands (Table 2). An additional simulated image was processed with spheric correction may confound this benefit for bathymetric map-
the 3 band Sentinel 2 configuration but with 30 m ETM+ pixel scale ping. For shallow-water applications it may be preferable, or even
and indicated that it is the narrower bands that help reduce the noise- necessary, to perform an alternative independent atmospheric
perturbed model-fit error and allow deeper bathymetric extractions. correction.
In a similar modeling study, Hochberg and Atkinson (2003) also found The difference between best and worst-case noise level was small
that narrow bands were beneficial in benthic reflectance discrimina- with respect to both model-fit error and fundamental uncertainty
tion, so this is clearly a desirable design feature for coral reef (Figs. 4, 5). Importantly, the worst-case noise 5 band Sentinel 2 treat-
applications. ment outperformed the best-case noise treatments of SPOT-4 and
Coral reefs can exhibit substantial bathymetric features on sub- ETM+ (Fig. 4, 5). Differences between sensor band configurations
meter scales, such as patch reefs in sandy lagoons, vertical fore-reef and the complexity of the benthic reflectance model had a far stron-
structures and spur and groove zones. Image spatial resolution ger effect on performance (Figs. 4, 5). The best-case noise characteri-
below that of these bathymetric features increases the spread of zation for SPOT-4 and ETM+ approaches the published instrument
data; the points forming horizontal bars in Fig. 4 represent variation SNRs (Table 2, Fig. 2). This implies that under the best image condi-
in the bathymetric echo-sound data within one simulated pixel. tions the pixel-to-pixel noise limitation tends toward the instrument

Band 2 reflectance at 490 nm Sen2 5B

a b

Bathymetry Sen2 5B

c d

Bathymetry Sen2 4B (i.e. 60 m resolution blue band omitted)

e f Depth (m)

Fig. 8. Illustration of errors introduced over high spatial resolution features by inclusion of lower spatial resolution bands. (a, b) Dark features in 10 m resolution images are up-
standing corals representing low bathymetry areas. (c, d) Bathymetry extraction including 60 m resolution blue band may identify these as deep, but (e, f) without the blue
band does not.
154 J. Hedley et al. / Remote Sensing of Environment 120 (2012) 145–155

noise, and not environmental factors such as air–water interface re- Landsat ETM+ is far greater than the performance difference be-
flection. Therefore improvements in the Sentinel 2 instrument noise tween them, and more marked for complex benthic models, suggest-
and signal digitization over Landsat ETM+ may give a better perfor- ing Sentinel 2 data may be capable of a fundamentally superior level
mance increase in the best quality imagery than implied by the re- of habitat mapping. Predicted performance and operational factors
sults presented here. The best-case noise estimate for Sentinel 2 indicate Sentinel 2 may be capable of detecting bleaching events
used here was necessarily conservative in being only slightly better by change analysis between successive images, at least in shallow
than Landsat ETM+, since operational data is not yet available. waters. Given the availability of data, development of algorithms
In addition to Landsat continuity, Sentinel 2 may prove an inter- to extract trends from time series data would seem a promising ap-
esting alternative for reef applications to the high spatial resolution proach. One caveat to be aware of is that imagery that merges
commercial sensors of IKONOS, Quickbird and WorldView-2. IKONOS layers of differing spatial resolution will cause problems for analyses
and Quickbird have been used in many shallow-water mapping appli- in areas of high spatial resolution features. This problem equally af-
cations (Andréfouët et al., 2003; Elvidge et al., 2004; Lyons et al., fects classification and model inversion methods and can only be
2011; Mumby & Edwards, 2002) and WorldView-2 with 5 bands in counteracted by explicitly incorporating spatial features into the
the visible range is strongly targeted for coastal applications. Sentinel analysis.
2's 10 m pixel resolution is lower than the 4 m to sub-2 m multispec- Overall our analyses have demonstrated exciting possibilities for
tral resolutions of the commercial offerings, but Sentinel 2's bands are the applicability of the Sentinel 2 multispectral instrument beyond
in general narrower, and this has been demonstrated here as an im- the original mission objectives. To optimally exploit the Sentinel 2
portant factor. IKONOS and Quickbird have 3 bands below 700 nm mission and to meet the time imperative of global reef monitoring
with widths 60–90 nm; WorldView-2 has 5 such bands, widths there is an urgent need to develop methods to maximally exploit
40–70 nm; while Sentinel 2 band widths are 20, 65, 35 and 30 nm. the operational data as soon as it becomes available. However, Senti-
Beyond sensor specification the overriding advantage of Sentinel 2 nel 2 is currently designed as a land monitoring mission and only
will be data availability, commercial considerations do not always en- covers tropical marine areas within 20 km of the coastline of substan-
sure timely image acquisition. Whereas operational five-day revisit tial land masses. This will significantly limit the applicability for glob-
opens opportunities for time series analysis that may outweigh spa- al mapping and monitoring coral reefs, as many reef areas will fall out
tial resolution issues. In addition the possibility to obtain cloud and of the foreseen coverage. The major distribution of coral reefs are
glint free data for single time point analysis is greatly improved. globally well known, in fact Landsat was a key enabling technology
for the Millennium Coral Reef Mapping Project. Hence the feasibility
4.4. Processing of mixed spatial resolutions of an adapted mission plan for Sentinel 2 could be reviewed.

One caveat to note with Sentinel 2 is that combining the multiple Acknowledgements
spatial resolutions of the band at 443 nm (60 m pixels) with the other
visible bands (10 m pixels) can introduce errors over high spatial res- This project was supported by the Australian Research Council
olution features (Fig. 8). The problem arises because, for example, for Discovery Grant DP0663 to S. Phinn, E. Le Drew and P. Mumby, and
a small coral region surrounded by sand the 443 nm band signal will through the World Bank and Global Environments Facility's Coral
be largely contributed to from the surrounding sand. Hence, the spec- Reef Targeted Research program. Fieldwork and data collection
tral reflectance profile over the coral will be a wavelength dependent were assisted by Heron Island Research Station, Great Barrier Reef
mix of sand and coral and will not represent the real reflectance of Marine Park Authority, University of South Pacific, Fiji, PICRIC in
any benthic type. This issue will be just as problematic for classifica- Palau, K. Joyce performed the CASI data pre-processing, which was
tion approaches as for spectral matching techniques since it intro- funded through a University of Queensland grant to S. Phinn. The
duces an additional degree of freedom to the classification analysis, CASI bandset was based on initial work by A. Dekker and V. Brando
and areas where this phenomenon occurs must be explicitly included at CSIRO. Peter Fearns at Curtin University of Technology, Western
as training data. A related issue is that the analysis here has assumed Australia, supplied a number of Landsat images which were used for
that the 60 m and 10 m pixels are edge-aligned, which may not be the image noise estimation. The authors thank S. Lavender and three
case. Similar issues will apply to other sensors with differing band anonymous reviewers whose comments helped to improve the
spatial resolutions, wavelength dependent point-spread functions, manuscript.
or other spatial alignment issues.

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