Ailuk Atoll RMI - 49 Named Motus Out of 57

Ailuk Atoll - Locator Map from ARB-127

Ailuk Atoll - Map From ARB-127

Just a few more atolls to map to complete the Republic of Marshall Island (RMI), specifically the Radak Chain. This particular island is made up of 49 named motus out of 57 total. I labeled a few of the larger motus. The atoll is home to 488 people. They make their living from harvesting and the sale of copra, fishing andcatering to the few tourists that come their way.

Ailuk Atoll - Landsat Image N-59-10_2000 (1:165,000)

Ailuk Atoll - DigitalGlobe Image from Google Earth (1:165,000)

I began this mapping project using the Landsat image. The clouds obscure many of the motus and underlying reefs. I checked out Google Earth's imagery and found the above DigitalGlobe image. First I constructed an image mosaic from the DG data, georeferenced it using my Landsat image. Once finished, I digitized the following layers of information: Island Polygon, Vegetation, Reef Awash, Reef Break, Reef Shallow and finally Reef Deep. Due to the size of this atoll and to display the entire atoll on one page required a scale of 1:165,000.

Ailuk Atoll - EVS Precision Map (1-165,000)

And here is the finished map. I only labeled the larger motus. The map took about 10 hours to complete. The motus were mapped primarily using DG images from Google Earth except in the southern part of the atoll where no DG imagery is posted. Whereas the reefs were mapped primarily from Landsat N-59-10_2000 imagery.

I finished the map at 12:00 AM this morning. At the time, the map and the post looked pretty good. This morning I had to make a number of corrections to both the post and the map. A word of advice, don't map after midnight. Your judgement gets cloudy and can obscure your normally keen perception.

Enjoy!