Climate and Environmental Change

Inventory of mangrove wetlands in the Pearl River Estuary of China using remote sensing

Expand
  • 1. School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China|
    2. Centre of Urban Planning and Environmental Management, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China|
    3. Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, CAS, Guangzhou 510640, China|
    4. Institute of Environmental Science, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China

Received date: 2005-12-19

  Revised date: 2006-02-10

  Online published: 2006-06-25

Supported by

Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong, No.031647; ‘985 Project’ of GIS and Remote Sensing for Geosciences from the Ministry of Education of China

Abstract

Mangrove forests have important ecological functions in protecting the environment. However, the mangrove wetlands have been largely lost because of intensified human activities in the study area. Remote sensing can be conveniently used for the inventory of mangrove forests because field investigation is very difficult. In this study, a knowledge-based system is developed to retrieve spatio-temporal dynamics of mangrove wetlands using multi-temporal remote sensing data. Radar remote sensing data are also used to provide complementary information for the quantitative analysis of mangrove wetlands. Radar remote sensing is able to penetrate mangrove forests and obtain the trunk information about mangrove structures. The integration of radar remote sensing with optical remote sensing can significantly improve the accuracies of classifying mangrove wetland types and estimating wetland biomass.

Cite this article

LI Xia, YEH Anthony, LIU Kai, WANG Shugong . Inventory of mangrove wetlands in the Pearl River Estuary of China using remote sensing[J]. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2006 , 16(2) : 155 -164 . DOI: 10.1007/s11442-006-0203-2

Outlines

/