The main objective of the study is to develop remote sensing methods that allow mapping benthic habitat and water depth in optically complex coastal and inland waters using high resolution satellite and airborne imagery. This will allow reaching a new level in environmental monitoring and spatial planning of coastal waters. The physics based approach where spectral library of different bottom types is collected in situ and then modeled through the water column with variable depth and optical properties will be used. The modeled spectral library is then used together with different supervised classification methods to retrieve bottom types from the remote sensing imagery. This method has been tested in coral reef environments and clear oceanic waters. The project plan is to test these applications in the waters with extensive variability of bottom types and high concentrations of different water constituents. The methods that allow recognizing a bottom types based on their texture (the spatial morphology) will be also used and combined with spectral information do provide greater detail about the shallow water bottom types than using of a single method. This requires combining of knowledge in a high spatial resolution remote sensing, marine benthic biology/ecology, GIS and spatial modeling. During the first phase of the project the applicant should learn the methods and techniques developed for a clear water environments, test suitability of these methods in an optically complex environments and develop new image interpretation methods. The second phase of the project will concentrate on the developing of remote sensing methods for a shallow water habitats in the Baltic Sea waters and demonstrate suitability of achieved scientific developments to the end users (environmental monitoring agencies etc.). The project addresses problem common to all coastal waters, thus, the results should be applicable to the majority of the Europe coastal and inland waters.