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Mapping China’s mangroves based on an object-oriented classification of Landsat imagery

  • Asia Special Feature
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Abstract

Reliable information on the extent and spatial distribution of mangroves has not been available for China. To create a map assessment of the mangroves for this region, an object-oriented classification technique was applied to Landsat-5/7 imagery at 30 m spatial resolution and verified using ground-truthing. Areal statistics for the mapped mangroves revealed that there were 20778 ha of mangroves located along the southeast coast of China. Extensive tracts of mangrove were found in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, and Fujian Province (9289, 5813, 3576, and 1023 ha, respectively). Based on ground-truthing, the overall accuracy of our mangrove map was 92.6 % and the Kappa confidence was 0.85. Knowledge of the status and distribution of mangroves is important for advancing their management and conservation in China.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2013CB430401, No. 2012CB956103), the CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams, the professor fund for NEIGAE, CAS (Y2H1071001) and the Key Deployment Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (NO. KZZD-EW-08-02). We thank the editor and three anonymous reviewers for their help in improving the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Wetland Ecology and Environment, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 4888, Shengbei Street, 130102, Changchun, China

    Mingming Jia, Zongming Wang, Kaishan Song, Chunying Ren, Bo Liu & Dehua Mao

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 19, Yuquan Road, 100049, Beijing, China

    Mingming Jia & Dehua Mao

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, Indiana University-Purdue University, 723W Michigan Street, Indianapolis, IN, USA

    Lin Li

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  1. Mingming Jia
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  2. Zongming Wang
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  3. Lin Li
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  4. Kaishan Song
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  5. Chunying Ren
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  6. Bo Liu
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  7. Dehua Mao
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Correspondence to Zongming Wang.

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Jia, M., Wang, Z., Li, L. et al. Mapping China’s mangroves based on an object-oriented classification of Landsat imagery. Wetlands 34, 277–283 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-013-0449-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-013-0449-2

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