Geographia Technica, No. 1, 2011, pp. 101 to 117 INITIAL REPORT OF THE AIMWETLAB PROJECT: SIMULTANEOUS AIRBORNE HYPERSPECTRAL, LIDAR AND PHOTOGRAMMETRIC SURVEY OF THE FULL SHORELINE OF LAKE BALATON, HUNGARY András ZLINSZKY 1 , Viktor TÓTH 1 , Piroska POMOGYI 2 , Gábor TIMÁR 3 ABSTRACT: Wetlands are valuable habitats under considerable threat from human activity. Lake shore wetlands are especially suitable for aerial surveys, and aerial photogrammetry, hyperspectral imaging or airborne laser scanning are the usual methods applied. Lake Balaton is a large shallow lake with wetlands in decline since the 1970’s. In August 2010, a full photogrammetric, hyperspectral and ALS survey of the shores of Lake Balaton was completed. This initial report summarizes rationale, methodology, planned processing and expected outputs. Data collected with the three methods is planned to be evaluated to the level of dominant vegetation species and condition, and the accuracy of each method will be compared. A standard remote sensing procedure will be recommended for future surveys relying on the most suitable method. As a secondary data product, a digital elevation model of the shore region will be produced which should be interesting for geomorphological investigations. Keywords: Lidar and photogrametric survey, wetlands, Lake Balaton, vegetation species. 1. INTRODUCTION Shore areas of freshwater lakes are more and more in the focus of ecological and biogeosciences research. Ecosystem services provided by wetlands including (but not limited to) non-point pollution reduction, flood control, groundwater recharge and microclimatic effects. These areas are hotspots of biodiversity due to the wide variety of biotic and abiotic conditions within relatively low distances in space (Vymazal, 2011). Lake shores and especially shore wetlands are also under an ongoing threat from urban expansion, pollution, overexploitation and global change (Schmieder, 2004). These parameters lead to widespread efforts for monitoring condition and health of shore areas. Research areas are the reed- (Phragmites australis) dominated wetland areas of Lake Balaton (12 km 2 ) and the full area of the Kis-Balaton wetland (70 km 2 ). Lake Balaton is a large (area 594 km 2 ) and relatively shallow lake (3.3 meters at mean water level) and thus is an important touristic destination. The management of the lake has to balance ecological needs and economic preferences. Large areas of shoreline have been built up by shorewalls, so the littoral areas which remain in their natural state are very important for maintaining ecological functions and species diversity. 90 % of the remaining natural shore is covered by reed-dominated wetlands, (Virág, 1998). These wetlands are gradually disintegrating since the 1970-s (Kovács et al., 1989) similarly to many other European lakes (van der Putten, 1997). Long-term datasets of the study area based on historic georeferenced maps starting from the 18 th century (Zlinszky and Molnar, 2009) and aerial photographs starting from the 1950-s are available. During a previous study (Zlinszky, 2007) 73 sample areas were selected which are 200 meter stretches of shore sheltered from 1 Balaton Limnological Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Tihany, Hungary 2 Central Transdanubian Environmental and Water Authority, Székesfehérvár, Hungary 3 Dept. of Geophysics and Space Science, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary