Aerial photography of coral reefs
Because of the complexity of coral reefs and difficulties in ground survey, the reef environment was one of the earliest to take advantage of remote sensing techniques (Hopley, 1978). Both aircraft and balloons (e.g., Rützler, 1978) formed the initial platforms, usually for vertically mounted cameras using black and white film. On the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), the earliest vertical aerial photography was in 1925, when the Royal Australian Air Force photographed the Low Isles at a scale of 1:2,400 in 1928 for the Yonge Expedition (see Great Barrier Reef Committee ). Simultaneously, Umbgrove (1928, 1929) was photographing reefs in Indonesia to aid the extensive work he was carrying out there.
Aerial photography was used in many reef studies for the next 50 years, though systematic approaches were rare (Steers, 1945; Teichert and Fairbridge, 1948, 1950). Color photography was used in some areas, especially those related to tourism projects. Between 1964...
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Hopley, D. (2011). Aerial Photography of Coral Reefs. In: Hopley, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Modern Coral Reefs. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2639-2_282
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