Vegetation Abundance and Health Mapping Over Southwestern Antarctica Based on WorldView-2 Data and a Modified Spectral Mixture Analysis
In polar regions, vegetation is especially sensitive to climate dynamics and thus can be used as an indicator of the global and regional environmental change. However, in Antarctica, there is very little information on vegetation distribution and growth status. To fill this gap, we evaluated the abi...
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ftmdpi:oai:mdpi.com:/2072-4292/13/2/166/ 2023-08-20T04:02:23+02:00 Vegetation Abundance and Health Mapping Over Southwestern Antarctica Based on WorldView-2 Data and a Modified Spectral Mixture Analysis Xiaohui Sun Wenjin Wu Xinwu Li Xiyan Xu Jinfeng Li agris 2021-01-06 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13020166 EN eng Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute Environmental Remote Sensing https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs13020166 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Remote Sensing; Volume 13; Issue 2; Pages: 166 Antarctica vegetation abundance WorldView-2 spectral mixture analysis moss health evaluation Text 2021 ftmdpi https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13020166 2023-08-01T00:48:47Z In polar regions, vegetation is especially sensitive to climate dynamics and thus can be used as an indicator of the global and regional environmental change. However, in Antarctica, there is very little information on vegetation distribution and growth status. To fill this gap, we evaluated the ability of both linear and nonlinear spectral mixture analysis (SMA) models, including a group of newly developed modified Nascimento’s models for Antarctic vegetated areas (MNM-AVs), in estimating the abundance of major Antarctic vegetation types, i.e., mosses and lichens. The study was conducted using WorldView-2 satellite data and field measurements over the Fildes Peninsula and its surroundings, which are representative vegetated areas in Antarctica. In MNM-AVs, we introduced secondary scattering components for vegetation and its background to account for the sparsity of vegetation cover and reassigned their coefficients. The new models achieved improved performances, among which MNM-AV3 achieved the lowest error for mosses (lichens) abundance estimation with RMSE = 0.202 (0.213). Compared with MNM-AVs, the linear model performed particularly poor for lichens (RMSE = 0.322), which is in contrast to the case of mosses (RMSE = 0.212), demonstrating that spectral signals of lichens are more prone to mix with their backgrounds. Abundance maps of mosses and lichens, as well as a map of moss health status for the entire study area, were then obtained based on MNM-AV3 with around 80% overall accuracy. Moss areas account for 0.7695 km2 in Fildes and 0.3259 km2 in Ardley Island; unhealthy mosses amounted to 40% (49%) of the area in the summer of 2018 (2019), indicating considerable environmental stress. Text Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ardley Island MDPI Open Access Publishing Antarctic Fildes ENVELOPE(-58.817,-58.817,-62.217,-62.217) Fildes peninsula ENVELOPE(-58.948,-58.948,-62.182,-62.182) Ardley ENVELOPE(-58.953,-58.953,-62.201,-62.201) Ardley Island ENVELOPE(-58.933,-58.933,-62.213,-62.213) Remote Sensing 13 2 166 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
MDPI Open Access Publishing |
op_collection_id |
ftmdpi |
language |
English |
topic |
Antarctica vegetation abundance WorldView-2 spectral mixture analysis moss health evaluation |
spellingShingle |
Antarctica vegetation abundance WorldView-2 spectral mixture analysis moss health evaluation Xiaohui Sun Wenjin Wu Xinwu Li Xiyan Xu Jinfeng Li Vegetation Abundance and Health Mapping Over Southwestern Antarctica Based on WorldView-2 Data and a Modified Spectral Mixture Analysis |
topic_facet |
Antarctica vegetation abundance WorldView-2 spectral mixture analysis moss health evaluation |
description |
In polar regions, vegetation is especially sensitive to climate dynamics and thus can be used as an indicator of the global and regional environmental change. However, in Antarctica, there is very little information on vegetation distribution and growth status. To fill this gap, we evaluated the ability of both linear and nonlinear spectral mixture analysis (SMA) models, including a group of newly developed modified Nascimento’s models for Antarctic vegetated areas (MNM-AVs), in estimating the abundance of major Antarctic vegetation types, i.e., mosses and lichens. The study was conducted using WorldView-2 satellite data and field measurements over the Fildes Peninsula and its surroundings, which are representative vegetated areas in Antarctica. In MNM-AVs, we introduced secondary scattering components for vegetation and its background to account for the sparsity of vegetation cover and reassigned their coefficients. The new models achieved improved performances, among which MNM-AV3 achieved the lowest error for mosses (lichens) abundance estimation with RMSE = 0.202 (0.213). Compared with MNM-AVs, the linear model performed particularly poor for lichens (RMSE = 0.322), which is in contrast to the case of mosses (RMSE = 0.212), demonstrating that spectral signals of lichens are more prone to mix with their backgrounds. Abundance maps of mosses and lichens, as well as a map of moss health status for the entire study area, were then obtained based on MNM-AV3 with around 80% overall accuracy. Moss areas account for 0.7695 km2 in Fildes and 0.3259 km2 in Ardley Island; unhealthy mosses amounted to 40% (49%) of the area in the summer of 2018 (2019), indicating considerable environmental stress. |
format |
Text |
author |
Xiaohui Sun Wenjin Wu Xinwu Li Xiyan Xu Jinfeng Li |
author_facet |
Xiaohui Sun Wenjin Wu Xinwu Li Xiyan Xu Jinfeng Li |
author_sort |
Xiaohui Sun |
title |
Vegetation Abundance and Health Mapping Over Southwestern Antarctica Based on WorldView-2 Data and a Modified Spectral Mixture Analysis |
title_short |
Vegetation Abundance and Health Mapping Over Southwestern Antarctica Based on WorldView-2 Data and a Modified Spectral Mixture Analysis |
title_full |
Vegetation Abundance and Health Mapping Over Southwestern Antarctica Based on WorldView-2 Data and a Modified Spectral Mixture Analysis |
title_fullStr |
Vegetation Abundance and Health Mapping Over Southwestern Antarctica Based on WorldView-2 Data and a Modified Spectral Mixture Analysis |
title_full_unstemmed |
Vegetation Abundance and Health Mapping Over Southwestern Antarctica Based on WorldView-2 Data and a Modified Spectral Mixture Analysis |
title_sort |
vegetation abundance and health mapping over southwestern antarctica based on worldview-2 data and a modified spectral mixture analysis |
publisher |
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13020166 |
op_coverage |
agris |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-58.817,-58.817,-62.217,-62.217) ENVELOPE(-58.948,-58.948,-62.182,-62.182) ENVELOPE(-58.953,-58.953,-62.201,-62.201) ENVELOPE(-58.933,-58.933,-62.213,-62.213) |
geographic |
Antarctic Fildes Fildes peninsula Ardley Ardley Island |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Fildes Fildes peninsula Ardley Ardley Island |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ardley Island |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Ardley Island |
op_source |
Remote Sensing; Volume 13; Issue 2; Pages: 166 |
op_relation |
Environmental Remote Sensing https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs13020166 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13020166 |
container_title |
Remote Sensing |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
166 |
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1774712814910308352 |