Shallow water bathymetry by satellite image: a case study on the coast of San Vito Lo Capo Peninsula, Northwestern Sicily, Italy

Mapping c oastal areas and shallow water depth has become an interesting topic for hydrographers and scientists. Many techniques using traditional methods have bee n us ed to map and study seabed evolutions of these areas. However ships, vessels and aircrafts used for bathymetric surveys in shallow water present some limitation sespecially their inability to map hard to reach areas and very near shoreline waters. In add ition, the cost and human resources deployed to conduct these surveys make them very expensive , even for small projects . In this paper we present a cost effective tool and a practical method for bathymetric studies of shallow water using multispectral satellite i mages. W e applied the Satellite derived bathymetry (SDB) method on the c oast of San Vito Lo Capo with a Geoeye 1 satellite image using available field data for calibration and vertical referencing. The result s show bathymetric information for a depth of 10 m with R 2 0.753 , contributing to the management of ports , maritime transport and the coastal environment in general.