Christine Hladik

Assistant Professor | Georgia Southern University

Statesboro, GA, UNITED STATES

Professor Hladik specializes in the application of geospatial data to address a range of ecological and management goals

Biography

I am broadly interested in the application of geospatial data, including remote sensing imagery, GIS and GPS, to address a range of ecological and management goals. My general research interests are the remote sensing of wetlands, estuaries, and coastal waters; the use of remote sensing to monitor climate change impacts; and the use of multi-sensor data in ecological monitoring. My research integrates different technologies to answer these questions and is interdisciplinary in nature. The overall goal of my research is to improve the value and interpretability of environmental geospatial data by developing methodologies and workflows that reduce errors and increase the usefulness of remote sensing data.

My research has involved the remote sensing of both estuarine water quality and salt marsh habitats. The focus of my M.S. thesis was close range remote sensing of coastal water quality and the development of a robust algorithm for the prediction of chlorophyll a concentrations. My dissertation research evaluated tools used to describe elevation and plant distribution in a Southeastern salt marsh using light detection and ranging (LIDAR) and hyperspectral imagery.

Areas of Expertise (6)

Coastal Wetlands

Geography

Remote Sensing

Geospatial Data Mapping

Remote Sensing and Data Assimilation

Wetlands

Education (3)

University of Georgia: Ph.D., Marine Sciences 2012

Creighton University: M.S., Atmospheric Science 2004

Creighton University: B.S., Environmental Science 2002

Links (1)

Faculty Profile Page

Articles (3)

Salt marsh elevation and habitat mapping using hyperspectral and LIDAR data

Remote Sensing of Environment

Christine Hladik, John Schalles, Merryl Alber

2013 Accurate mapping of both elevation and plant distributions in salt marshes is important for management and conservation goals. Although light detection and ranging (LIDAR) is effective at measuring surface elevations, laser penetration is limited in dense salt marsh vegetation. In a previous study, we found that LIDAR-derived digital elevation model (DEM) error varied with vegetation cover...

Accuracy assessment and correction of a LIDAR-derived salt marsh digital elevation model

Remote Sensing of Environment

Christine Hladik, Merryl Alber

2012 Accurate habitat mapping in salt marshes is critical for both management and conservation goals. Information on marsh elevation is important to coastal managers, particularly for flood inundation mapping, coastal hazard assessments and modeling sea level rise. Elevation is also an important determinant of the frequency and duration of tidal flooding, which in turn affects species patterns in marshes: elevation differences of less than 10 cm can affect plant distributions and productivity...

Remote chlorophyll-a retrieval in turbid, productive estuaries: Chesapeake Bay case study

Remote Sensing of Environment

Anatoly A Gitelson, John F Schalles, Christine M Hladik

2007 Accurate remote assessment of phytoplankton chlorophyll a (chla) concentration is particularly challenging in turbid, productive waters. Recently a conceptual model containing reflectance in three spectral bands in the red and near infra-red range of the spectrum was suggested for retrieving chla concentrations in turbid productive waters; it was calibrated and validated in lakes and reservoirs in Nebraska and Iowa. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the performance of this three band model as well as its special case, the two-band model to estimate chla concentration in Chesapeake Bay, as representative of estuarine Case II waters, and to assess the accuracy of chla retrieval...