Alexandria "Ally" Malilay CC'23 conducts research in Tepungan Bay, Guam.
Alexandria "Ally" Malilay CC'23, Familian Sarrasa yan Bejong yan Nene, is a Environmental Biology major and Rabi Scholar who is currently conducting an accuracy assessment of widely used remote sensing data products for the shallow reefs of Tepungan Bay in Guam. Three marine habitat maps created from satellite and imaging spectrometer data will be compared to NASA fluid lensing 2.0 data and a habitat map produced by this study with WorldView-3 data. These maps are currently being produced with heads-up digitization using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and verification in the field.
Ally hopes to learn about the types of aerial imagery that are most useful for mapping coral reefs at a smaller scale. These habitat maps of the seabed are essential to getting a better understanding of the condition and development of an ecosystem over time. With this information, marine scientists can better inform the appropriate local and international responses to marine preservation efforts.
