A visual assessment technique for estimating seagrass standing crop

Abstract

1. Ground-truthing techniques for measuring seagrass standing crop need to be simple, precise, non-destructive and quick. 2. Mellors (1991) designed a visual assessment technique for estimating above-ground seagrass biomass. This paper builds on Mellors' work and presents a modified method for estimating standing crop which uses a six-point ordinal scale (excluding zero). 3. Being non-destructive, this technique is ideally suited for resource assessment in environmentally sensitive areas and, being quick, is potentially useful when threats are imminent. 4. Statistical methods and data presented in this study will allow sample size/statistical power relationships to be estimated for any comparable study and therefore negate the need to conduct pilot surveys. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.