Mapping mangrove forest distribution on Banten, Jakarta, and West Java Ecotone Zone from Sentinel-2-derived indices using cloud computing based Random Forest

Abstract

Mangrove ecosystem is a very potential area, generally located in ecotone areas (a combination of intertidal and supratidal areas), where there is an interaction between waters (sea, brackish water, and rivers) with land areas. Indonesia, especially the Banten and West Java Regions, have vast mangrove areas and are currently under threat of land conversion. Moreover, mapping the distribution of mangrove forests using the Google Earth Engine platform based on Cloud Computing is less published. Therefore, this research was conducted by introducing the distribution of mangrove forests which involved the Random Forest (RF) classification algorithm method and looking for the best modification of the index. The combination test was carried out by involving the NDVI, EVI, ARVI, SLAVI, IRECI, RVI, DVI, SAVI, IBI, GNDVI, NDWI, MNDWI, and LSWI indexes. There is a distribution of mangroves in three provinces (West Java, Banten, and Jakarta) which are 933.54 ha (8.37%), 1 537.89 ha (18.23%), and 8 184.82 ha (73.397%). Of the 70 combination tests, the LSWI index (K13, Type-A) is the combination with the lowest accuracy rate of 58.45% (overal accuracy) and 39.59 (Kappa statistic), and the combination of K23 (SAVI-MNDWI-IBI) is a combination the best are 96.48% and 92.79. The results and recommendations in this study are expected to be used as a reference in determining policies for the protection of mangrove areas and a reference for further research.