Applications of Low Altitude Remote Sensing Platform for Monitoring Coastal Environmental Changes

Human activity causes considerable changes in the magnitude and nature of many biogeochemical constituents that are delivered and mixed with sea water, especially inside and outside of Saemangeum. Saemangeum is an estuarine tidal flat on the west coast of the Yellow Sea, South Korea. Accordingly, monitoring the magnitudes and changes of the coastal water properties are important to understand the propagation and evolution of terrestrial components coming from the land as well as their effect on coastal environments in response to catastrophic events and climate change. In this presentation, many applications of a newly developed Helikite based low altitude remote sensing system will be introduced such as continuous tracking an interface between water in Saemangeum and coastal water, mapping high resolutions of current system, and biogeochemical constituents in the water. In order to monitor the interface, five different camera imagery from low altitude remote sensing system were composed. For mapping current system, feature tracking method was used. For estimating biogeochemical constituents, hyperspectral sensor, RAMSES and in situ water sampling data were used. We could continuously monitor the high variability of different water interfaces and current system in response to the strong tide and winds.