5. Conclusions
The application of the developed GIS model shows that it works
effectively to establish spatial models for identifying the most suitable
areas for hanging culture of Japanese scallop development. As
expected, most of the areas at the bay had high suitability scores.
This is because, most of the parameters (biophysical and social–
infrastructural) in the study area are favorable for scallop culture
development. This study shows that with appropriate information
(i.e., remote sensing), GIS used in modeling is a powerful tool for site
selection decision making. As more data become available either from
satellite images or field measurements, the usefulness of this tool will
increase and provide a range of functions embedded in various
components that can be tailored for optimum site selection.
Acknowledgments
We would like to acknowledge the Earth Observation Research and
application Center (EORC)/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
(JAXA) for providing ALOS data under the PI contract agreement. We
thank the GSFC/DAAC of NASA for the production and distribution of
SeaWiFS and MODIS data. We thank Dr. John R. Bower for reading our
manuscript and improving the English of this paper. We are very
grateful to four anonymous referees who contributed greatly to
manuscript improvement.