Remote sensing of wetland types: Tropical herbaceous vegetation

Abstract

The classification of wetland vegetation classes is conditional upon the variety of species or community of species present and seasonal changes in the extent and duration of water and flooding patterns occurring within the landscape. The capability of detecting and mapping water flow under vegetation using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) enables information to be determined about the structure, composition and extent of surface vegetation types. Fully polarimetric C, L and P -band SAR data was acquired over the Cambodian Tonle Sap Basin in September 2000 and interrogated to map thirteen wetland vegetation ecosystem classes at the western end of the Basin. In a second example both SAR and optical imagery were used to map wetland vegetation on Lake Chilwa, Malawi.