Abstract
The Florida Everglades is the largest subtropical wetland system in the United States and, as with subtropical and tropical wetlands elsewhere, has been threatened by severe environmental stresses. It is very important to monitor such wetlands to inform management on the status of these fragile ecosystems. This study aims to examine the applicability of TerraSAR-X quadruple polarimetric (quad-pol) synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) data for classifying wetland vegetation in the Everglades. We processed quad-pol data using the Hong & Wdowinski four-component decomposition, which accounts for double bounce scattering in the cross-polarization signal. The calculated decomposition images consist of four scattering mechanisms (single, co- and cross-pol double, and volume scattering). We applied an object-oriented image analysis approach to classify vegetation types with the decomposition results. We also used a high-resolution multispectral optical RapidEye image to compare statistics and classification results with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) observations. The calculated classification accuracy was higher than 85%, suggesting that the TerraSAR-X quad-pol SAR signal had a high potential for distinguishing different vegetation types. Scattering components from SAR acquisition were particularly advantageous for classifying mangroves along tidal channels. We conclude that the typical scattering behaviors from model-based decomposition are useful for discriminating among different wetland vegetation types.
Highlights
Tropical and subtropical wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth, providing numerous ecosystems services, including critical habitat for a variety of fauna and flora, energy and nutrients for coral reefs, and protection of near-shore areas from natural disasters such as storm surge or tsunami [1,2]
For our study area we focused on Tarpon Bay in the coastal wetland area, which is located in the southwestern section of the Everglades National Park (ENP) in southern Florida (Figure 1a)
We examined the usefulness of quad-pol X-band TerraSAR-X data for vegetation mapping over the Everglades wetland
Summary
Tropical and subtropical wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth, providing numerous ecosystems services, including critical habitat for a variety of fauna and flora, energy and nutrients for coral reefs, and protection of near-shore areas from natural disasters such as storm surge or tsunami [1,2]. Tropical and subtropical wetlands include both inland freshwater and coastal saltwater wetland types. A Wetland of International Importance, is the largest natural region of subtropical wilderness in the United States. The Everglades wetlands have been threatened by severe environmental stresses induced by climate change, human population growth, urban expansion, and agricultural and other land conversion. Protecting the wetlands requires detailed assessments of their vegetation distribution in terms of vegetation types and vegetation changes over time
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