Cited by 297Wetland Management and ConservationRemote-Sensing Image ClassificationRemote Sensing in Agriculture

The Challenges of Remote Monitoring of Wetlands

Open access
Gallant, Alisa·2015·Remote Sensing

Abstract

Wetlands are highly productive and support a wide variety of ecosystem goods and services. Various forms of global change impose compelling needs for timely and reliable information on the status of wetlands worldwide, but several characteristics of wetlands make them challenging to monitor remotely: they lack a single, unifying land-cover feature; they tend to be highly dynamic and their energy signatures are constantly changing; and steep environmental gradients in and around wetlands produce narrow ecotones that often are below the resolving capacity of remote sensors. These challenges and needs set the context for a special issue focused on wetland remote sensing. Contributed papers responded to one of three overarching questions aimed at improving remote, large-area monitoring of wetlands: (1) What approaches and data products are being developed specifically to support regional to global long-term monitoring of wetland landscapes? (2) What are the promising new technologies and sensor/multisensor approaches for more accurate and consistent detection of wetlands? (3) Are there studies that demonstrate how remote long-term monitoring of wetland landscapes can reveal changes that correspond with changes in land cover and land use and/or changes in climate?

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3390/rs70810938

Cites

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Given the spatial resolution of remotely sensed data, it is unclear how remote sensing could be used to record small (<10 m2) or intermittent ponds (during the dry phase), and those located under forest canopy.

    “However, given the spatial resolution of remotely sensed data, it is unclear how remote sensing could be used to record small (<10 m 2 ) or intermittent ponds (during the dry phase), and those located under forest canopy (Gallant 2015, Kissel et al. 2020).”

    From Pond ecology and conservation: research priorities and knowledge gaps (2021) · cites this paper as Gallant 2015

    The Figure 1 discussion says some wetland features fall below remote sensors’ spatial resolving capacity and that smaller wetlands can be obscured by tree canopies. Section 2 describes rapid changes in water levels and the effects of drying on remotely sensed signals. The paper does not establish the <10 m² threshold or specifically say that intermittent ponds cannot be recorded during their dry phase. (LLM, conf=0.85)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

No references could be resolved yet.

Research works printed but not linked: 73

  1. Marshall, C.H.; Pielke, R.A.; Steyaert, L.T. Has the conversion of natural wetlands to agricultural land increased the incidence and severity of damaging freezes in South Florida? Mon. Weather Rev. 2004, 132, 2243-2258.
  2. Myers, J.P. Conservation of migrating shorebirds: Staging areas, geographic bottlenecks, and regional movements. Migr. Conserv. 1983, 37, 23-25.
  3. Webb, E.B.; Smith, L.M.; Vrtiska, M.P.; Lagrange, T.G. Effects of local and landscape variables on wetland bird habitat use during migration through the Rainwater Basin. J. Wildl. Manag. 2010, 74, 109-119.
  4. Baldassarre, G.A.; Bolen, E.G. Waterfowl Ecology and Management; John Wiley and Sons: New York, NY, USA, 1994.
  5. Karl, T.R.; Melilo, J.M.; Peterson, T.C. Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 2009.
  6. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability; IPCC: Cambridge, UK, 2014.
  7. Euliss, N.H., Jr.; Mushet, D.M.; Newton, W.E.; Otto, C.R.V.; Nelson, R.D.; LaBaugh, J.W.; Scherff, E.J.; Rosenberry, D.O. Placing prairie pothole wetlands along spatial and temporal continua to improve integration of wetland function in ecological investigations. J. Hydrol. 2014, 513, 490-503.
  8. Adam, E.; Mutanga, O.; Rugege, D. Multispectral and hyperspectral remote sensing for identification and mapping of wetland vegetation: A review. Wetl. Ecol. Manag. 2010, 18, 281-296.
  9. Klemas, V. Remote sensing of emergent and submerged wetlands: An overview. Int. J. Remote Sens. 2013, 34, 6286-6320.
  10. Kuenzer, C.; Bluemel, A.; Gebhardt, S.; Vo Quoc, T.; Dech, S. Remote sensing of mangrove ecosystems: A review. Remote Sens. 2011, 3, 878-928.
  11. Brisco, B.; Kapfer, M.; Hirose, T.; Tedford, B.; Liu, J. Evaluation of C-band polarization diversity and polarimetry for wetland mapping. Can. J. Remote Sens. 2011, 37, 82-92.
  12. Brisco, B.; Schmitt, A.; Murnaghan, K.; Kaya, S.; Roth, A. SAR polarimetric change detection for flooded vegetation. Int. J. Digit. Earth 2013, 6, 103-114.
  13. Brisco, B.; Short, N.; van der Sanden, J.; Landry, R.; Raymond, D. A semi-automated tool for surface water mapping with Radarsat-1. Can. J. Remote Sens. 2009, 35, 336-344.
  14. Rover, J.; Wylie, B.K.; Ji, L. A self-trained classification technique for producing 30 m percent-water maps from Landsat data. Int. J. Remote Sens. 2010, 31, 2197-2203.
  15. Wickham, J.D.; Stehman, S.V.; Fry, J.A.; Smith, J.H.; Homer, C.G. Thematic accuracy of the NLCD 2001 land cover for the conterminous United States. Remote Sens. Environ. 2010, 114, 1286.
  16. Wickham, J.D.; Stehman, S.V.; Gass, L.; Dewitz, J.; Fry, J.A.; Wade, T.G. Accuracy assessment of NLCD 2006 land cover and impervious surface. Remote Sens. Environ. 2006, 130, 294.
  17. Corcoran, J.M.; Knight, J.F.; Gallant, A.L. Influence of multi-source and multi-temporal remotely sensed and ancillary data on the accuracy of Random Forest classification of wetlands in northern Minnesota. Remote Sens. 2013, 5, 3212-3238.
  18. Kasischke, E.S.; Smith, K.B.; Bourgeau-Chavez, L.L.; Romanowicz, E.A.; Brunzell, S.; Richardson, C.J. Effects of seasonal hydrologic patterns in South Florida wetlands on radar backscatter measured from ERS-SAR imagery. Remote Sens. Environ. 2003, 88, 423-441.
  19. Ollinger, S.V. Sources of variability in canopy reflectance and the convergent properties of plants. New Phytol. 2010, 189, 375-394.
  20. Kaasalainen, S.; Niittymaki, H.; Krooks, A.; Koch, K.; Kaartinen, H.; Vain, A.; Hyyppa, H. Effect of target moisture on laser scanning intensity. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens. 2010, 48, 2128-2136.
  21. Gallant, A.L.; Kaya, S.G.; White, L.; Brisco, B.; Roth, M.F.; Sadinski, W.; Rover, J. Detecting emergence, growth, and senescence of wetland vegetation with polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. Water 2014, 6, 694-722.
  22. Silva, T.S.F.; Costa, M.P.F.; Melack, J.M.; Novo, E.M.L. Remote sensing of aquatic vegetation: Theory and applications. Environ. Monit. Assess. 2008, 140, 131-145.
  23. Refice, A.; Capolongo, D.; Pasquariello, G.; D'Addabbo, A.; Bovenga, F.; Nutricato, R.; Lovergine, F.P.; Pietranera, L. SAR and InSAR for flood monitoring: Examples with COSMO-SkyMed data. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Observ. Remote Sens. 2014, 7, 2711-2722.
  24. Ticehurst, C.; Guerschman, J.P.; Chen, Y. The strengths and limitations in using the daily MODIS open water likelihood algorithm for identifying flood events. Remote Sens. 2014, 6, 11791-11809.
  25. Van der Valk, A.G. Water-level fluctuations in North American prairie wetlands. Hydrobiologia 2005, 539, 171-188.
  26. Euliss, N.H., Jr.; LaBaugh, J.W.; Fredrickson, L.H.; Mushet, D.M.; Laubhan, M.K.; Swanson, G.A.; Winter, T.C.; Rosenberry, D.O.; Nelson, R.D. The wetland continuum: A conceptual framework for interpreting biological studies. Wetlands 2004, 24, 448-458.
  27. Gleason, R.A.; Euliss, N.H., Jr.; Hubbard, D.E.; Duffy, W.G. Effects of sediment load on emergence of aquatic invertebrates and plants from wetland soil egg and seed banks. Wetlands 2003, 23, 26-34.
  28. Hidding, B.; Sarneel, J.M.; Bakker, E.S. Flooding tolerance and horizontal expansion of wetland plants: Facilitation by floating mats? Aquat. Bot. 2014, 113, 83-89.
  29. Chu, S.; Molano-Flores, B. Impacts of agricultural to urban land-use change on floristic quality assessment indicators in northeastern Illinois wetlands. Urban Ecosyst. 2013, 16, 235-246.
  30. Olmanson, L.G.; Brezonik, P.L.; Bauer, M.E. Geospatial and temporal analysis of a 20-year record of Landsat-based water clarity in Minnesota's 10,000 lakes. J. Am. Water Resour. Assoc. 2014, 50, 748-761.
  31. Sawaya, K.E.; Olmanson, L.G.; Heinert, N.J.; Brezonik, P.L.; Bauer, M.E. Extending satellite remote sensing to local scales: Land and water resource monitoring using high-resolution imagery. Remote Sens. Environ. 2003, 88, 144-156.
  32. Trebitz, A.S.; Brazner, J.C.; Tanner, D.K.; Meyer, R. Interacting watershed size and landcover influences on habitat and biota of Lake Superior coastal wetlands. Aquat. Ecosyst. Health Manag. 2011, 14, 443-455.
  33. White, L.; Brisco, B.; Pregitzer, M.; Tedford, B.; Boychuk, L. Radarsat-2 beam mode selection for surface water and flooded vegetation mapping. Can. J. Remote Sens. 2014, 40, 135-151.
  34. Wright, C.; Gallant, A. Improved wetland remote sensing in Yellowstone National Park using classification trees to combine TM imagery and ancillary environmental data. Remote Sens. Environ. 2007, 107, 582-605.
  35. Klemas, V. Remote sensing of coastal wetland biomass: An overview. J. Coast. Res. 2013, 29, 1016-1028.
  36. Klemas, V. Remote sensing techniques for studying coastal ecosystems: An overview. J. Coast. Res. 2011, 27, 2-17.
  37. Lee, H.; Beighley, R.E.; Alsdorf, D.; Jung, H.C.; Shum, C.K.; Duan, J.; Guo, J.; Yamazaki, D.; Andreadis, K. Characterization of terrestrial water dynamics in the Congo Basin using GRACE and satellite radar altimetry. Remote Sens. Environ. 2011, 115, 3530-3538.
  38. Tiner, R.W.; Lang, M.W.; Klemas, V.V. Remote Sensing of Wetlands; CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL, USA, 2015.
  39. Wilen, B.O.; Bates, M.K. The US Fish and Wildlife Service's National Wetlands Inventory project. Vegetation 1995, 118, 153-169.
  40. Yang, X. Remote sensing and GIS applications for estuarine ecosystem anaysis: An overview. Int. J. Remote Sens. 2005, 26, 5347-5356.
  41. Hardisky, M.A.; Gross, M.F.; Klemas, V. Remote sensing of coastal wetlands. Bioscience 1986, 36, 453-460.
  42. Carle, M.V.; Wang, L.; Sasser, C.E. Mapping freshwater marsh species distributions using WorldView-2 high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery. Int. J. Remote Sens. 2015, 35, 4698-4716.
  43. Laba, M.; Downs, R.; Smith, S.; Welsh, S.; Neider, C.; White, S.; Richmond, M.; Philpot, W.; Baveye, P. Mapping invasive wetland plants in the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve using QuickBird satellite imager. Remote Sens. Environ. 2008, 112, 286-300.
  44. Hu, Y.; Huang, J.; Du, Y.; Han, P.; Huang, W. Monitoring spatial and temporal dynamics of flood regimes and their relation to wetland landscape patterns in Dongting Lake from MODIS time-series imagery. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 7494-7520.
  45. Ozesmi, S.L.; Bauer, M.E. Satellite remote sensing of wetlands. Wetl. Ecol. Manag. 2002, 10, 381-402.
  46. Klemas, V. Airborne remote sensing of coastal features and processes: An overview. J. Coast. Res. 2012, 29, 239-255.
  47. Gallant, A.L.; Klaver, R.W.; Casper, G.S.; Lannoo, M.J. Global rates of habitat loss and implications for amphibian conservation. Copeia 2007, 2007, 967-979.
  48. Kim, D.-H.; Sexton, J.O.; Townshend, J.R. Accelerated deforestation in the humid tropics from the 1990s to the 2000s. Geophys. Res. Lett. 2015, 42, 3495-3501.
  49. McCauley, L.A.; Anteau, M.J.; van der Burg, M.P.; Wiltermuth, M.T. Land use and wetland drainage affect water levels and dynamics of remaining wetlands. Ecosphere 2015, 6, 1-22.
  50. Ogden, J.C.; Davis, S.M.; Barnes, T.K.; Jacobs, K.J.; Gentile, J.H. Total system conceptual ecological model. Wetlands 2005, 25, 955-979.
  51. Van Asselen, S.; Verburg, P.H.; Vermaat, J.E.; Janse, J.H. Drivers of wetland conversion: A global meta-analysis. PLoS ONE 2013, 8, e81292.
  52. Cleland, J. World population growth; Past, present and future. Environ. Resour. Econ. 2013, 55, 543-554.
  53. Diffenbaugh, N.S.; Field, C.B. Changes in ecologically critical terrestrial climate conditions. Science 2013, 341, 486-492.
  54. Special Issue: Towards Remote Long-Term Monitoring of Wetland Landscapes. Available online: http://www.mdpi.com/journal/remotesensing/special_issues/wetland-landscapes (accessed on 4 August 2015).
  55. Moffett, K.B.; Nardin, W.; Silvestri, S.; Qang, C.; Temmerman, S. Multiple stable states and catastrophic shifts in coastal wetlands: Progress, challenges, and opportunities in validating theory using remote sensing and other methods. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 10184-10226.
  56. Chapman, B.; McDonald, K.; Shimada, M.; Rosenqvist, A.; Schroeder, R.; Hess, L. Mapping regional inundation with spaceborne L-band SAR. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 5440-5470.
  57. Clewley, D.; Whitcomb, J.; Moghaddam, M.; McDonald, K.; Chapman, B.; Bunting, P. Evaluation of ALOS PALSAR data for high-resolution mapping of vegetated wetlands in Alaska. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 7272-7297.
  58. Jones, J.W. Efficient wetland surface water detection and monitoring via Landsat: Comparison with in situ data from the Everglades Depth Estimation Network. Remote Sens. 2015, in press.
  59. Bourgeau-Chavez, L.; Endres, S.; Battaglia, M.; Miller, M.E.; Banda, E.; Laubach, Z.; Higman, P.; Chow-Fraser, P.; Marcaccio, J. Development of a bi-national Great Lakes coastal wetland and land use map using three-season PALSAR and Landsat imagery. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 8655-8682.
  60. Frappart, F.; Papa, F.; Malbeteau, Y.; Leon, J.G.; Ramillien, G.; Prigent, C.; Seoane, L.; Seyler, F.; Calmant, S. Surface freshwater storage variations in the Orinoco floodplains using multi-satellite observations. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 89-110.
  61. Amler, E.; Schmidt, M.; Menz, G. Definitions and mapping of East African wetlands: A review. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 5256-5282.
  62. Lane, C.R.; Liu, H.; Autrey, B.C.; Anenkhonov, O.A.; Chepinoga, V.V.; Wu, Q. Improved wetland classification using eight-band high resolution satellite imagery and a hybrid approach. Remote Sens. 2014, 6, 12187-12216.
  63. Luo, J.; Ma, R.; Duan, H.; Hu, W.; Zhu, J.; Huang, W.; Lin, C. A new method for modifying thresholds in the classification of tree models for mapping aquatic vegetation in Taihu Lake with satellite images. Remote Sens. 2014, 6, 7442-7462.
  64. Blakey, T.; Melesse, A.; Hall, M.O. Supervised classification of benthic reflectance in shallow subtropical water using a generalized pixel-based classifier across a time series. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 5098-5116.
  65. Ceron, C.N.; Melesse, A.M.; Price, R.; Dessu, S.B.; Kandel, H.P. Operational actual wetland evapotranspiration estimation for South Florida using MODIS imagery. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 3613-3632.
  66. Wu, Q.; Lane, C.; Liu, H. An effective method for detecting potential woodland vernal pools using high-resolution lidar data and aerial imagery. Remote Sens. 2014, 6, 11444-11467.
  67. Medeiros, S.; Hagen, S.; Weishampel, J.; Angelo, J. Adjusting lidar-derived digital terrain models in coastal marshes based on estimated aboveground biomass density. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 3507-3525.
  68. White, L.; Brisco, B.; Dabboor, M.; Schmitt, A.; Pratt, A. A collection of SAR methodologies for monitoring wetlands. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 7615-7645.
  69. Chen, Y.; He, X.; Wang, J.; Xiao, R. The influence of polarimetric parameters and an object-based approach on land cover classification in coastal wetlands. Remote Sens. 2014, 6, 12575-12592.
  70. Hong, S.-H.; Kim, H.-O.; Wdowinski, S.; Feliciano, E. Evaluation of polarimetric SAR decomposition for classifying wetland vegetation types. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 8563-8585.
  71. Breiman, L. Random Forests. Mach. Learn. 2001, 45, 5-32.
  72. Corcoran, J.; Knight, J.; Pelletier, K.; Rampi, L.; Wang, Y. The effects of point or polygon based training data on randomForest classification accuracy of wetlands. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 4002-4025.
  73. Millard, K.; Richardson, M. On the importance of training data sample selection in Random Forest image classification: A case study in peatland ecosystem mapping. Remote Sens. 2015, 7, 8489-8515.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Gallant, A.
Affiliations
Earth Resources Observation and Science Center (US)
Corresponding author
Gallant, Alisa
Venue
Remote Sensing
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2015-08-24
Volume
7
Issue
8
Pages
10938-10950
ISSN
2072-4292 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W1927159739
Cited by
297
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 22 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 31 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 38 · 2021: 38 · 2020: 32 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 1
FWCI
22.58
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Remote Sensing (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Ocean Engineering › Wetland Management and Conservation
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Media Technology › Remote-Sensing Image Classification
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Remote Sensing in Agriculture
Keywords
wetland monitoring, long-term monitoring, wetland detection, land cover change, land use change, climate change, ecotone, global change

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review