Abstract
A method has been developed for mapping mangrove forests using two unique characteristics of mangroves. (1) Reflectance of mangrove forests in short-wave-infrared bands is lower than that of non-mangrove vegetation. (2) Mangroves can form forests only in the intertidal zones between the mean and the highest sea levels. A Landsat ETM+ image and digital elevation model were used to map mangrove forests in Iriomote Island, Okinawa, Japan. The delineated extent of mangrove forests agreed fairly well with ground truth data with the producer’s accuracy of 64.2∼80.0 %, the user’s accuracy of 60.8∼84.3 %, and the kappa coefficients of 0.61∼0.79. The method was also applied to Trang Province, Thailand for detecting area changes of mangrove forests using a Landsat TM image of 31 January 1990, an ASTER image of 27 January 2003, and the C-band SRTM DEM. The potential of the method has been shown for investigating area changes of mangrove forests.
