Vietnam wetland cover map: using hydro-periods Sentinel-2 images and Google Earth Engine to explore the mapping method of tropical wetland

• Published in: International journal of applied earth observation and geoinformation 2022-12, Vol.115, p.103122, Article 103122
• Main Authors: Liu, Yang, Zhang, Huaiqing, Zhang, Meng, Cui, Zeyu, Lei, Kexin, Zhang, Jing, Yang, Tingdong, Ji, Ping
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: biodiversity; data collection; ecological value; geography; Google Earth Engine; greenhouse gases; Internet; phenology; pollution; Sentinel-2; spatial data; time series analysis; Tropical wetland; Vietnam; Wetland mapping; wetlands
• ISSN: 1569-8432; 1872-826X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jag.2022.103122

•A classification system for tropical wetland was built.•An automatic method IPG-MTWM for tropical wetland mapping was proposed.•The GEE and Sentinel-2 data can well depict the tropical wetland cover.•Vietnam wetland cover map (VWeC) was mapped with an overall accuracy of 82.07%. Tropical wetland resources have high ecological value to flood storage, greenhouse gas emissions, and biodiversity, with diverse types and widespread distribution. However, cloud pollution, inundation fluctuations, and spectral similarity pose unique challenges in the monitoring of tropical wetland using remote sensing. In this study, we proposed a comprehensive method for mapping the various types of tropical wetland using time series Sentinel-2 images based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform integrated inundation dynamic, phenological, and geography features for multi-class topical wetland mapping (IPG-MTWM). Obtained a precise Vietnam wetland cover map (VWeC), which covers ten types of wetlands within a spatial resolution of 10 m. The overall accuracy (OA) of the VWeC was 82.07 %. compared the VWeC results with other wetland products showing the advantages of the IPG-MTWM in mapping complete wetland cover types with high spatial resolution and accuracy at large scales. The VWeC is the first thematic mapping on wetland cover types of Vietnam, it indicates that Vietnam has approximately 1,367,502.16 ha wetlands, of which coastal wetland accounts for approximately 44.27 % (605,318.3 ha). Vietnam’s wetlands are mainly distributed in South Vietnam (SV). The integrated inundation dynamic, phenological, and geography features method, highlights the potential of precise and fast multi-class topical wetland mapping at a large-scale using hydro-periods Sentinel-2 images and GEE platform. This study provides an important technique and dataset for tropical wetland monitoring, protection, and management.