Abstract
A regional map of mangrove forests was produced for six islands located in the southern part of Japan by integrating the spectral analyses of Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) images with a digital elevation model (DEM). Several attempts were applied to propose a reliable method, which can be used to map the distribution of mangrove forests at a regional scale. The methodology used in this study comprised of obtaining the difference between Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), band ratio 5/4, and band 5, from Landsat ETM+, and integrating them with the topographic information. The integration of spectral analyses with topographic data has clearly separated the mangrove forests from other vegetation. An accuracy assessment was carried out in order to check the accuracy of the results. High overall accuracy ranging from 89.3% to 93.6% was achieved, which increased the opportunity to use this methodology in other countries rich in mangrove forests.
Highlights
Mangrove forests are of great environmental and land cover-mapping importance, they extend throughout tropical and sub-tropical ecosystems
It is worthy of mention that the GLC2000, which used daily 1-km Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre (SPOT)/VEGETATION data of 2000, did not show any mangrove forest in the study area
The objective of this study was to develop a method that is capable of mapping mangrove forests at a regional scale as an independent land cover class using remote sensing techniques
Summary
Mangrove forests are of great environmental and land cover-mapping importance, they extend throughout tropical and sub-tropical ecosystems. Mangroves have significant economical and environmental values beside their influence on global climate change. They protect coastlines against high tidal waves and floods, host a number of animal species, provide food for many marine species, and act as filters of sediments and nutrients in coastal catchments [2]. Within the same environment there are other types of vegetation such as pastures, coastal shrubs and forests that grow up alongside with mangroves. The problem with these other types of vegetation is that they have spectral similarity with mangroves at a finer level [4]. It is anticipated that producing maps of mangrove forests at a regional scale will usually require high spatial resolution remotely sensed data
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