Image Analysis Techniques to Evaluate Effects of Lakeshore Development on Aquatic Habitat

Lakeshore property is highly valued by homeowners, particularly in Minnesota where an abundance of lakes has allowed numerous opportunities for development.  However, excessive lakeshore development has the potential to negatively impact aquatic habitat that supports important recreational fisheries.  Researchers lack efficient techniques to evaluate the potential impacts of lakeshore development and are often limited to in situ assessments of shoreline condition.  Advances in remote sensing have created unprecedented opportunities for developing tools to assess lakeshore development.  Specifically, image analysis techniques with remotely sensed data could be used to quantify lakeshore development, such as the number of docks or boat lifts per kilometer of shoreline.  We have developed automated techniques to quantify lakeshore development in Minnesota using high-resolution aerial photos.  The amount and spatial extent of docks and boat lifts for 4,300 lakes managed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has been quantified using our image analysis techniques.  These data indicate our techniques can efficiently and accurately quantify rates of lakeshore development at ecologically relevant spatial scales.  These techniques could also be used to quantify lakeshore development in other regions with available imagery.