Estimating Ground Elevation and Vegetation Characteristics in Coastal Salt Marshes Using UAV-Based LiDAR and Digital Aerial Photogrammetry

Pinton, Daniele; Canestrelli, Alberto; Wilkinson, Benjamin; Ifju, Peter; Ortega, Andrew

doi:10.3390/rs13224506

Cited by 28 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 101 publications

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“…Computation of many features using a cloud-based approach like Google Earth Engine can be achieved in seconds, hence there are few disadvantages in starting with excessive features. Given that mean elevation was the most important feature for image classification, our study has provided evidence that using elevation and multispectral data together improves classification accuracy, as suggested by previous studies (e.g., Husson et al, 2017;Doughty and Cavanaugh, 2019;Digiacomo et al, 2020), especially for photogrammetrically-derived DSMs (Pinton et al, 2021). This makes sense, because boundaries between mudflats, saltmarsh species and terrestrial vegetation are strongly driven by tidal inundation depths (Clarke and Hannon, 1970).…”

Section: Classification Successsupporting

confidence: 73%

Blue carbon ecosystem monitoring using remote sensing reveals wetland restoration pathways

Lanceman

Sadat‐Noori²,

Gaston³

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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In an era of climate and biodiversity crises, ecosystem rehabilitation is critical to the ongoing wellbeing of humans and the environment. Coastal ecosystem rehabilitation is particularly important, as these ecosystems sequester large quantities of carbon (known in marine ecosystems as “blue carbon”) thereby mitigating climate change effects while also providing ecosystem services and biodiversity benefits. The recent formal accreditation of blue carbon services is producing a proliferation of rehabilitation projects, which must be monitored and quantified over time and space to assess on-ground outcomes. Consequently, remote sensing techniques such as drone surveys, and machine learning techniques such as image classification, are increasingly being employed to monitor wetlands. However, few projects, if any, have tracked blue carbon restoration across temporal and spatial scales at an accuracy that could be used to adequately map species establishment with low-cost methods. This study presents an open-source, user-friendly workflow, using object-based image classification and a random forest classifier in Google Earth Engine, to accurately classify 4 years of multispectral and photogrammetrically derived digital elevation model drone data at a saltmarsh rehabilitation site on the east coast of Australia (Hunter River estuary, NSW). High classification accuracies were achieved, with >90% accuracy at 0.1 m resolution. At the study site, saltmarsh colonised most suitable areas, increasing by 142% and resulting in 56 tonnes of carbon sequestered, within a 4-year period, providing insight into blue carbon regeneration trajectories. Saltmarsh growth patterns were species-specific, influenced by species’ reproductive and dispersal strategies. Our findings suggested that biotic factors and interactions were important in influencing species’ distributions and succession trajectories. This work can help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of restoration planning and monitoring at coastal wetlands and similar ecosystems worldwide, with the potential to apply this approach to other types of remote sensing imagery and to calculate other rehabilitation co-benefits. Importantly, the method can be used to calculate blue carbon habitat creation following tidal restoration of coastal wetlands.

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Section: Classification Successsupporting

confidence: 73%

Blue carbon ecosystem monitoring using remote sensing reveals wetland restoration pathways

Lanceman

Sadat‐Noori²,

Gaston³

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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“…The payload consisted of a Velodyne Puck Lite VLP16, paired with a Novatel Stim300 Inertial Measurement Unit. The point clouds from the drone were orthorectified from GPS data continuously measured on the drone (see the procedure described in 85,86 ). To remove the vegetation and any other surface perturbations (i.e., from digital surface model to digital elevation model), we used the CloudCompare software (https:// github.com/cloudcompare/cloudcompare).…”

Section: Field Experiments 3: Creekshed Mussel Manipulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Faunal engineering stimulates landscape-scale accretion in southeastern US salt marshes

et al. 2023

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The fate of coastal ecosystems depends on their ability to keep pace with sea-level rise—yet projections of accretion widely ignore effects of engineering fauna. Here, we quantify effects of the mussel, Geukensia demissa, on southeastern US saltmarsh accretion. Multi-season and -tidal stage surveys, in combination with field experiments, reveal that deposition is 2.8-10.7-times greater on mussel aggregations than any other marsh location. Our Delft-3D-BIVALVES model further predicts that mussels drive substantial changes to both the magnitude (±<0.1 cm·yr−1) and spatial patterning of accretion at marsh domain scales. We explore the validity of model predictions with a multi-year creekshed mussel manipulation of >200,000 mussels and find that this faunal engineer drives far greater changes to relative marsh accretion rates than predicted (±>0.4 cm·yr−1). Thus, we highlight an urgent need for empirical, experimental, and modeling work to resolve the importance of faunal engineers in directly and indirectly modifying the persistence of coastal ecosystems globally.

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“…However, field observations of the type considered in the present study are time‐ and resource‐consuming. Recent developments in mapping marsh vegetation and elevation through multi‐ or hyper‐spectral and lidar‐derived data (Pinton et al., 2021; Yang et al., 2020) can facilitate marsh monitoring, reducing research costs while increasing the spatial and temporal resolution of data. This will lead to a significant improvement in our understanding of ecomorphodynamic processes that shape tidal marshes, with relevant implications for the conservation and restoration of these valuable ecosystems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long‐Term Monitoring of Coupled Vegetation and Elevation Changes in Response to Sea Level Rise in a Microtidal Salt Marsh

et al. 2023

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Tight interplays between physical and biotic processes in tidal salt marshes lead to self‐organization of halophytic vegetation into recurrent zonation patterns developed across elevation gradients. Despite its importance for marsh ecomorphodynamics, however, the response of vegetation zonation to changing environmental forcings remains difficult to predict, mostly because of lacking long‐term field observations of vegetation evolution in the face of changing rates of sea level rise and marsh vertical accretion. Here we present novel data of coupled marsh elevation‐vegetation distribution collected in the microtidal Venice Lagoon (Italy) over nearly two decades. Our results suggest that: (a) despite increasing absolute marsh elevations (i.e., above a fixed datum), vertical accretion rates across most of the studied marsh were not high enough to compensate for relative sea‐level rise (RSLR), thus leading to a progressive marsh drowning; (b) accretion rates ranging 1.7–4.3 mm/year are overall lower than the measured RSLR rate (4.4 mm/year) and strongly site‐specific. Accretion rates vary largely at sites within distances of a few tens of meters, being controlled by local elevation and sediment availability from eroding marsh edges; (c) vegetation responds species‐specifically to changes in environmental forcings by modifying species‐preferential elevation ranges. For the first time, we observe the consistency of a sequential vegetation‐species zonation with increasing marsh elevations over 20 years. We suggest this is the signature of vegetation resilience to changes in external forcings. Our results highlight a strong coupling between geomorphological and ecological dynamics and call for spatially distributed marsh monitoring and spatially explicit biomorphodynamic models of marsh evolution.

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Estimating Ground Elevation and Vegetation Characteristics in Coastal Salt Marshes Using UAV-Based LiDAR and Digital Aerial Photogrammetry

Cited by 28 publications

References 101 publications

Blue carbon ecosystem monitoring using remote sensing reveals wetland restoration pathways

Blue carbon ecosystem monitoring using remote sensing reveals wetland restoration pathways

Faunal engineering stimulates landscape-scale accretion in southeastern US salt marshes

Long‐Term Monitoring of Coupled Vegetation and Elevation Changes in Response to Sea Level Rise in a Microtidal Salt Marsh

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