Wetland Monitoring Using SAR Data: A Meta-Analysis and Comprehensive Review

Despite providing vital ecosystem services, wetlands are increasingly threatened across the globe by both anthropogenic activities and natural processes. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has emerged as a promising tool for rapid and accurate monitoring of wetland extent and type. By acquiring informat...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2020-07, Vol.12 (14), p.2190
Main Authors: Adeli, Sarina, Salehi, Bahram, Mahdianpari, Masoud, Quackenbush, Lindi J., Brisco, Brian, Tamiminia, Haifa, Shaw, Stephen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropogenic factors
Aquatic ecosystems
Backscattering
Carbon cycle
change detection
classification
Ecosystem services
Emissions
Imagery
Incidence angle
Keywords
Mapping
Measurement techniques
Meta-analysis
Moisture content
Monitoring
Photogrammetry
PolSAR
Remote sensing
Sensors
Synthetic aperture radar
Trends
Vegetation
Water content
wetland monitoring
Wetlands
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Despite providing vital ecosystem services, wetlands are increasingly threatened across the globe by both anthropogenic activities and natural processes. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has emerged as a promising tool for rapid and accurate monitoring of wetland extent and type. By acquiring information on the roughness and moisture content of the surface, SAR offers unique potential for wetland monitoring. However, there are still challenges in applying SAR for mapping complex wetland environments. The backscattering similarity of different wetland classes is one of the challenges. Choosing the appropriate SAR specifications (incidence angle, frequency and polarization), based on the wetland type, is also a subject of debate and should be investigated more thoroughly. The geometric distortion of SAR imagery and loss of coherency are other remaining challenges in applying SAR and its processing techniques for wetland studies. Hence, this study provides a systematic meta-analysis based on compilation and analysis of indexed research studies that used SAR for wetland monitoring. This meta-analysis reviewed 172 papers and documented an upward trend in usage of SAR data, increasing usage of multi-sensor data, increasing integration of C- and L- bands over other configurations and higher classification accuracy with multi-frequency and multi-polarized SAR data. The highest number of wetland research studies using SAR data came from the USA, Canada and China. This meta-analysis highlighted the current challenges and solutions for wetland monitoring using SAR sensors.
ISSN:2072-4292
2072-4292
DOI:10.3390/rs12142190