Remote sensing of wetland types: Arctic and boreal wetlands

Abstract

Initiatives aimed at studying change in arctic and boreal wetlands aim at (1) producing snapshots of lake change, (2) upscaling analyses to regional and panarctic levels; (3) linking earth observation data to permafrost degradation modelling. Because of the limitations of optical data, radar data (notably SAR) have become popular for mapping and change detection in boreal and arctic regions. A wide of methods has been used, including combinations of optical and SAR data and different classification algorithms to separate vegatation and hydrogeomorphic characteristics. Examples of applications to wetlands in Alaska and eastern Siberia are reviewed.