Landscape Level in-Stream Habitat Mapping Using Side Scan Sonar in Florida

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has undertaken the challenge of creating substrate maps of every navigable river within five sub-basins (HUC 8s)  selected as preservation and enhancement priorities.  The end result will be over 1,140 river kilometers of mapped riverine substrate habitat, baseline river condition data, additional variables for predictive habitat modeling, and a resource for monitoring the effectiveness of restoration efforts.  All of the combined data will represent an invaluable resource for studying the links between watershed land use and aquatic habitat.  This work also serves as an opportunity to investigate novel data collection and analysis techniques including the simultaneous collection of both video and snapshot data.  We are using Sonar TRX™ to increase speed of image processing and as an aid to differentiating visually similar substrate types based on hardness and roughness. Additionally, several python scripts have been developed to automate many steps involved in the snapshot method of data collection.  To date, nearly all imagery has been collected and a hierarchical classification scheme has been developed along with clear class definitions that should allow for its application across multiple areas.