Julie Scopelitis

I am currently undergoing a PhD project entitled

"Spatial and temporal response of coral reef communities to disturbances: mapping and modelling with remote sensing and cellular automata"



project:

I aim at integrating spatial and temporal knowledge of reef dynamics available at different scales and utilise a spatially-explicit formalism to provide local monitoring and management programs with visual spatial support by simulating predictive maps of coral communities under disturbance scenarios.



This work challenges me on the appropriate scale of observation and description of coral communities to capture spatial an temporal dynamics at the reef scale.

It leads me to adapting and innovating mapping techniques based on visual interpretation of images(spectral signatures). These techniques are applied across 3-4 decades long time series of images.

Then documented with the local disturbances history that affected the reefs I can use the map series to retrace the coral communities' response to stress in space and time: degradation, recovery, colonisation. I can quantify changes by performing change detection between consecutive maps.

All this information and material is then used to develop an innovative spatially-explicit modelling approach for coral reefs using cellular automata. The model aims at providing maps of coral communities under disturbance scenarios. More specifically, the first scenario simulates sea level variation on a shallow reef flat and its subsequent colonisation by coral.




study sites (time series), disturbance and images:

Abore Reef (2002-2004, 2 images) - Barrier reef, New-Caledonia, South-West Pacific Ocean - cyclone Erica - IKONOS and Quickbird satellite images

Heron Reef (1973-2007, 8 images) - Platform reef, Great Barrier Reef, Australia, Coral See - sea level variation in response to engineering works (harbour dredging, bund walls construction) - aerial photographs, CASI image, Quickbird satellite image

Saint-Leu Reef (1972-2007, 8 images)- Fringing Reef, la Reunion island, Western Indian Ocean - cyclones (Firinga, Dina) and bleaching - aerial photographs, Quickbird satellite image





softwares:

image processing: ArcGIS, ENVI, Erdas Imagine, Definiens
modelling: Delphi


field-work-related skills:

field sampling, benthic community description, use of GPS, snorkelling, scub-diving, underwater photographs





supervisions and funding institutions:

Dr.Stuart Phinn: The University of Queensland, Centre of Remote Sensing and Spatial information Science (CRSSIS, Brisban, Australia.
Dr.Serge Andrefouet: Institu de Recherche pour le Development (IRD), UR Coreus, Noumea, New-Claedonia.
Dr. Pascal Chabanet: Universite de la Reunion, laboratoire d'Ecologie Marine (EcoMar) St-Denis, la Reunion, France.


supplementary supervision
Dr. Doug Ward: Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University,Brisbane, Australia.


collaborations:
Dr. Terry Done: Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), Townsville, Australia.
Dr. Odile Naim: Universite de Bretagne Sud, Laboratoire de Biologie et Chimie Marine, Vannes, France.






publications (peer review):

Scopélitis, J., Andréfouët, S., Phinn, S., Chabanet, P., Naim, O., Tourrand, C.,Done, T. Changes of coral communities over 35 years: Integrating in situ and remote sensing data on Saint-Leu Reef (la Réunion, Indian Ocean), Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (2009), doi: 10.1016/ j.ecss.2009.04.030

Scopelitis J., Andrefouet S., Largouet C. Modelling coral reef habitat trajectories: Evaluation of an integrated timed automata and remote sensing approach (2007) Ecological Modelling, 205 (1-2), pp. 59-80.

Develop a time-explicit model of coral reef habitat transition from remote sensing and field information.
data collection, model design, model implementation, scientific publication redaction.